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MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 



MODERN 
AMERICAN SPEECHES 



EDITED 
WITH NOTES AND INTRODUCTIONS 

BY 

LESTER W. BOAEDMAN, A.M. 

Head of the Department of English in Rhode Island State College 



NEW YORK 

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO 

FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET 
1913 






Copyright, 1913, 

BY 

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 



THE SCIENTIFIC PRE68 

ROBERT DRUMMOND AND COMPANY 

BROOKYLN, N. Y- 



/ 



^0 

©CI.A3 5 960 



PREFACE 



Many times during his work as a teacher of English, 
the editor has felt that it would be desirable to pre- 
sent to high school pupils some speeches by American 
authors on subjects of our own dsiy. He does not 
believe that the older classics have no message for the 
coming generation, nor does he believe that the later 
writings are too new or too poor in quality for the 
instruction and inspiration of our youth. If a science 
text-book should present the principles of the gas 
engine and the aeroplane, why should not a literature 
text offer equally modern material? Such an innova- 
tion has been made in poetry; and the effect of ''Poetry 
of the People" on classes encourages the editor to 
attempt a similar innovation in prose. This book, 
therefore, presents four selections from authors who 
are living at the present time or who have died recently, 
on subjects of vital importance to Americans of to-day 
and to-morrow. 

Carl Schurz's "True Americanism/' although the 
speech was delivered in 1858, nevertheless has present 
interest because it was far in advance of its time and 
foreshadowed some principles of twentieth century 
government. "The New South" brings now the 
the same appeal that Henry W. Grady carried to the 
North in 1886 for a better understanding of the South. 



vi PREFACE 

John Hay discusses the peace question in a practical 
way in '' America's Love of Peace." Although he 
feels strongly the obstacles in the way of international 
peace, yet he recites the advances made by the move- 
ment and looks to its ultimate success. Elihu Root 
shows us in '' The Pan-American Spirit " a specific 
step toward international friendliness. The cumu- 
lative effect of these four selections reveals an Ameri- 
can ideal developed within our natior^ and reaching 
out to influence the world. 

Neither teacher nor pupil should expect to find here 
the same styles that characterize the works of Burke 
and Webster and Macaulay. As time has brought 
changes in other fashions, so it has introduced new 
styles of oratory. These writings reveal their authors 
as masters of clearness, ease, and force. Wit, pathos, 
homely idiom, literary allusion, unexaggerated elo- 
quence — all will appeal to the reader as they did to 
the audiences that were moved by their authors. 

The choice of authors and selections has been diffi- 
cult because of the many eloquent speakers of the last 
twenty years. The necessary brevity of a high school 
text and a certain unity of tone in the selections 
chosen, have limited this book to the scope previously 
mentioned. 

L. W. B. 
Kingston, R. I. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Preface v 

Life of Carl Schurz 3 

"True Americanism" 11 

Life of Henry W. Grady .37 

"The New South" 41 

Life of John Hay 55 

" America's Love of Peace " 63 

Career of Elihu Root 75 

" The Pan-American Spirit " .... 83 

Notes 93 

vii 



LIFE OF CARL SCHUEZ 



LIFE OF CARL SCHURZ 

To the American youth of to-day the account of 
the j&rst twenty years of the hfe of Carl Schurz must 
read Hke a romance. Before he had reached his 
majorit}^ he had taken part in a revolution, narrowly 
escaped capture and execution, and rescued a friend 
from a prison near Berlin. These adventures seem 
near our own times; for their hero, after military 
and political service in our country, died in 1906. 

Carl Schurz was born at Liblar, near Cologne, in 
southern Germany, on March 2, 1829. He grew up 
in an atmosphere of intelligent discussion of political 
affairs and the spirit of democracy. At some sacri- 
fice to his parents he was educated at the gymnasium 
in Cologne and at the University of Bonn. Literature 
and music attracted him from the first. As a member 
of the Burschenschaft Franconia, a student organiza- 
tion that trained its members in writing and speaking, 
he made a name for himself as a brilliant satirist and 
a vigorous speaker on public questions. 

In 1847 Schurz came under the influence of Pro- 
fessor Gottfried Kinkel, a lecturer on literature and 
art. Personal acquaintance with this inspiring teacher 
and contact with the group of liberal minded men 
and women who gathered at his house, caused Schurz 
to join the movement of protest against existing polit- 
ical conditions. So in February, 1848, when the 



4 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

news came that the French people had driven away 
Louis PhiUppe and proclaimed the repubhc, he joined 
in the student demonstrations. 

Many provinces in Germany were rising to force 
their rulers to urge upon the King of Prussia, Frederick 
William IV, the granting of a constitutional form of 
government and the union of the German states 
This movement apparently culminated in success when 
on March 18, 1848, the citizens of Berlin, who had been 
fired upon by soldiers for demanding a hearing from 
the King, fought all day in the streets and drove out 
the army. With great self restraint they took the 
dead bodies of their comrades into the courtyard of 
the palace, summoned the King to a window to gaze 
upon them, sang ''Jesus, My Refuge," and departed 
in grim solemnity. The King then acceded to all 
requests and agreed to summon a parliament at Frank- 
furt for the purpose of uniting all Germany under 
a democratic constitutional government. In a few 
months, however, Frederick William IV repudiated 
all his promises and prorogued the parliament that 
he had summoned. At once the people rose in revolt 
and in Bavaria, Baden, and Saxony drove out their 
rulers. 

To support these revolutionists an attempt was 
made by the students of Bonn to seize a government 
armory in a neighboring town. Because of the failure 
of this attempt, Kinkel and Schurz were forced to 
flee to the Palatinate. After a brief and disastrous 
campaign in Bavaria and Baden, the revolutionary 
army sustained a siege in the fortress of Rastatt. 
When this stronghold surrendered, Schurz escaped 
capture and certain execution by making his way 



LIFE OF CARL SCHURZ 6 

through a sewer to the river and crossing into French 
territory on the west of the Rhine. 

His joy at his own escape was turned into sorrow by 
the news that Kinkel had been captured and sentenced 
to life imprisonment in a civil penitentiary at Spandau, 
near Berlin. Despite the difficulty and hazard of the 
task, he determined to try to rescue his friend. Trav- 
eling on the passport of a cousin who resembled him, 
Schurz went to Bonn, where he saw Frau Kinkel. 
With enthusiastic faith she entrusted the enterprise 
of rescue to this youth of twenty. On August 11, 
1849, he entered the city of Berlin. After nearly three 
months of careful planning, he arranged, by means of 
a large sum of money and by the wholesouled help 
of two admirers of Kinkel, to liberate his friend. On 
November 6th, at midnight, Kinkel descended by 
a rope from the prison loft to which a friendly guard 
had taken him, entered a carriage which Schurz had 
waiting, and was whirled away to Rostock, seventy 
miles north on the Baltic Sea. After being sheltered 
there for nine days in the home of Mr. Brockelmann, 
Kinkel and Schurz set sail in one of their host's ships 
and finally landed at Edinburgh, Scotland, on Novem- 
ber 29, 1849. Of their feelings Schurz writes: ''At 
last — all danger past, no more pursuit, a new life 
ahead! It was glorious." 

(The student will enjoy reading the detailed account 
of these adventures in ''The Reminiscences of Carl 
Schurz,'' Vol. I.) 

For nearly three years Schurz resided in London, 
where he made his living by teaching German and 
music. In that city and during occasional trips to 
Paris and Switzerland, he met such famous men as 



6 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

Mazzini and Loiiis Kossuth. Having married in 
1852 and being convinced of the uselessness of further 
attempts at revolution in Germany, he and his wife 
emigrated to the United States in September, 1852. 

In New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, Schurz 
perfected his knowledge of the English language and 
of our law and political institutions. Soon he settled 
in Madison, Wisconsin, and took up the practice of 
law. In the political campaigns of 1858 and 1860 he 
spoke effectively for the newly formed Republican 
party. In recognition of Schurz 's ability and aid. 
President Lincoln appointed him Minister to Spain 
in 1861. Within a year, however, he returned after 
valuable service in preventing foreign antagonism to 
the Union cause, and served with credit as a brigadier 
general throughout the Civil War. 

After four years of journalistic work, he was elected 
in 1869 United States senator from Missouri. As an 
independent he opposed President Grant's annexation 
schemes. With Curtis, he represented conservation 
and the highest statesmanship. In 1875 he spoke 
for sound finance against '^Greenbackism." Under 
President Hayes, as Secretary of the Interior, he began 
the Civil Service reform. In 1884, 1888, and 1892 
he supported Cleveland, and in 1896 he opposed 
Bryan on the ''free silver" question. 

When public feeling was being stirred up against 
Spain by the ''yellow journals" in 1898, Schurz urged 
President McKinley to withstand the popular clamor 
and endeavor to relieve Cuba by peaceable methods. 
He was not bhnd to the humanitarian motive of the 
United States, but he recalled vividly the horrors 
that he had witnessed at Gettysburg and wished to 



LIFE OF CARL SCHURZ 7 

avert another war. In the editorial columns of the 
" New York Evening Post," Schurz vigorously opposed 
the policy of imperialism. He predicted truly and 
accurately the burdens that imperialism would bring. 
If he could have anticipated the ultimate withdrawal 
of the United States from the Philippines, as announced 
by President Taft on July 4, 1910, his attitude might 
have been different. It was hardly possible, however, 
for the statesman of seventy-three years to look at so 
great a task with the dashing enthusiasm that had led 
the youth of nineteen to rescue his friend, single- 
handed, from the whole official power of Germany. 

Carl Schurz died on May 14, 1906. His last words 
were: ^'Es ist so einfach zu sterben" — ''It is so 
simple to die." 

Works 

" Occasional Speeches." 

" Life of Henry Clay." 

" Essay on Abraham Lincoln." 

" Reminiscences o^ Carl Schurz." 



TRUE AMERICANISM 



1 



TRUE AMERICANISM* 

A Speech by Carl Schurz 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: 

A few days ago I stood on the cupola of your State- 
house, and overlooked for the first time this venerable 
city and the country surrounding it. Then the streets, 
and hills, and waters around me began to teem with 
the life of historical recollections, recollections dear to 
all mankind, and a feeling of pride arose in my heart, 
and I said to myself, I, too, am an American citizen. 
(Applause.) There was Bunker Hill, there Charles- 
town, Lexington, and Dorchester Heights not far off; 
there the harbor into which the British tea was sunk; 
there the place where the old liberty-tree stood; there 
John Hancock's house; there Benjamin Franklin's 
birthplace — and now I stand in this grand old hall, 
which so often resounded with the noblest appeals 
that ever thrilled American hearts, and where I am 
almost afraid to hear the echo of my own feeble voice; 
oh, sir, no man that loves liberty, wherever he may 
have first seen the light of day, can fail on this sacred 
spot to pay his tribute to Americanism. And here, 
with all these glorious memories crowding upon my 
heart, I will offer mine. I, born in a foreign land, pay 
my tribute to Americanism? Yes, for to me, the 

* Reprinted from "Speeches of Carl Schurz" by special per- 
mission of J. B. Lippincott Company. 

11 



12 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

word Americanism, true Americanism, comprehends 
the noblest ideas which ever swelled a human heart 
with noble pride. (Applause.) 

It is one of the earliest recollections of my boyhood, 
that one summer night our whole village was stirred 
up by an uncommon occurrence. I say our village, 
for I was born not far from that beautiful spot where 
the Rhine rolls his green waters out of the wonderful 
gate of the Seven Mountains, and then meanders with 
majestic tranquillity through one of the most glorious 
valleys of the world. That night our neighbors were 
pressing around a few wagons covered with linen 
sheets and loaded with household utensils and boxes 
and trunks to their utmost capacity. One of our 
neighboring families was moving far away across a 
great water, and it was said that they would never 
again return. And I saw silent tears trickling down 
weather-beaten cheeks, and the hands of rough peasants 
firmly pressing each other, and some of the men and 
women hardly able to speak when they nodded to one 
another a last farewell. At last the train started into 
motion, they gave three cheers for America, and then 
in the first gray dawn of the morning I saw them 
wending their way over the hill until they disappeared 
in the shadow of the forest. And I heard many a 
man say, how happy he would be if he could go with 
them to that great and free country, where a man 
could be himself. (Applause.) 

That was the first time that I heard of America, 
and my childish imagination took possession of a land 
covered partly with majestic trees, partly with flowery 
prairies, immeasurable to the eye, and intersected 
with large rivers and broad lakes — a land where every- 



TRUE AMERICANISM 13 

body could do what he thought best, and where nobody 
need be poor, because everybody was free. 

Later, when I was old enough to read, and descrip- 
tions of this country and books on American history 
fell into my hands, the offspring of my imagination 
acquired the colors of realit}-, and I began to exercise 
my brain with the thought what man might be and 
become, when left perfectly free to himself. And 
still later, when ripening into manhood, I looked up 
from my school-books into the stir and bustle of the 
world, and the trumpet-tones of struggling humanity 
struck my ear and thrilled my heart, and I saw my 
nation shake her chains in order to burst them, and I 
heard a gigantic, universal shout for Liberty rising up 
to the skies ; and at last, after having struggled manfully 
and drenched the earth of Fatherland with the blood 
of thousands of noble beings, I saw that nation crushed 
down again, not only by overwhelming armies, but 
by the dead weight of customs and institutions and 
notions and prejudices, which past centuries had 
heaped upon them, and which a moment of enthusiasm, 
however sublime, could not destroy; then I consoled 
an almost despondent heart with the idea of a youth- 
ful people and of original institutions clearing the way 
for an untrammeled development of the ideal nature 
of man. Then I turned my eyes instinctively across 
the Atlantic Ocean, and America and Americanism, 
as I fancied them, appeared to me as the last deposi- 
tories of the hopes of all true friends of humanity. 
(Applause.) 

I say all this, not as though I indulged in the pre- 
sumptuous delusion that my personal feelings and 
experience would be of any interest to you, but in 



M MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

order to show you what America is to the thousands 
of thinking men in the old world; who, disappointed 
in their fondest hopes and depressed by the saddest 
experience, cling with their last remnant of confidence 
in human nature, to the last spot on earth where man 
is free to follow the road to attainable perfection, and 
where, unbiassed by the disastrous influence of tradi- 
tional notions, customs, and institutions, he acts on 
his own responsibility. They ask themselves: Was 
it but a wild delusion when we thought that man has 
the faculty to be free and to govern himself? Have we 
been fighting, were we ready to die, for a mere phantom, 
for a mere product of a morbid imagination? This 
question downtrodden humanity cries out into the 
world, and from this country it expects an answer. 

As its advocate I speak to you. I will speak of 
Americanism as the great representative of the reforma- 
tory age, as the great champion of the dignity of human 
nature, as the great repository of the last hopes of 
suffering mankind. I will speak of the ideal mission 
of this country and of this people. 

You may tell me that these views are visionary, 
that the destiny of this country is less exalted, that 
the American people are less great than I think they 
are or ought to be. I answer, ideals are like stars; 
you will not succeed in touching them with your 
hands. But hke the seafaring man on the desert of 
waters, you choose them as your guides, and follomng 
them you will reach your destiny. I invite you to 
ascend with me the watchtower of history, overlooking 
the grand panorama of the development of human 
affairs, in which the American Republic stands in so 
bold and prominent relief. 



TRUE AMERICANISM 15 

He who reviews the past of this country in con- 
nection with the history of the world besides, cannot 
fail to discover a wonderful coincidence of great events 
and fortunate circumstances, which were destined to 
produce everlasting results, unless recklessly thrown 
away by imbecile generations. 

Look back with me four or five centuries. The 
dark period of the middle ages is drawing near its 
close. The accidental explosion of that mysterious 
black powder, discovered by an obscure German monk, 
is the first flash of lightning preluding that gigantic 
thunder-storm which is to shatter the edifice of feudal 
society to pieces. The invention of gunpowder strips 
the feudal lord of his prestige as a warrior; another 
discovery is to strip him of his prestige as a man! 
Guttenberg, another obscure German, invents the 
printing-press, and as gunpowder blows the castles 
of the small feudal tyrants into the air, so the formid- 
able artillery of printed letters batters down the citadels 
of ignorance and superstition. (Loud applause.) Soul 
and body take up arms and prepare themselves for 
the great battle of the Reformation. Now the mighty 
volcano of the German mind bursts the crust of indo- 
lence which has covered it. The world is ablaze, 
all the elements of society are rising up in boiling 
commotion — two ages are battling against each other. 

Meanwhile, a new country has opened its boundless 
fields to those great ideas, for the realization of which 
the old world seems no longer to be \vdde enough. 
It is as though the earth herself had taken part in the 
general revolution, and had thrown up from her sea- 
covered womb a new battle-ground for the spirit of the 
new era. That is America. Not only the invention 



16 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

of gunpowder and of the printing-press, but also the 
discovery of America inaugurates the modern age. 

There is the new and immense continent. The most 
restless and enterprising elements of European society 
direct their looks toward it. First, the greediness of 
the gold-hunting adventurers pounces upon the new 
conquest; but his inordinate appetites being disap- 
pointed, he gradually abandons the field to men in 
whose hearts the future of the new world is sleeping,* 
unborn. 

While the coast of Virginia is settled by a motley 
immigration, led and ruled by men of ideas and enter- 
prise, the sturdiest champions of principle descend 
upon the stony shores of New England. (Applause.) 
While the southern colonies are settled under the 
auspices of lordly merchants and proprietaries, original 
democracy plants its stern banner upon Plymouth 
Rock. (Applause.) Mercantile speculation, aristo- 
cratic ambition, and stern virtue that seeks freedom 
and nothing but freedom, lead the most different classes 
of people, different in origin, habits, and persuasion, 
upon the virgin soil, and entrust to them that task of 
realizing the great principles of the age. Nor is this 
privilege confined to one nationality alone. While the 
Anglo-Saxon takes possession of New England, Vir- 
ginia, and Pennsylvania, the Frenchman plants his 
colonies on the soil of French Florida and the interior 
of the continent; the Hollander locates New Nether- 
lands on the banks of the Hudson; the Swede, led there 
by the great mind of Oxenstiern, occupies the banks 
of the Delaware; the Spaniard maintains himself in 
Peninsular Florida, and a numerous immigration of 
Germans, who follow the call of religious freedom, 



TRUE AMERICANISM 17 

and of Irishmen, gradually flowing in, scatters itself 
all over this vast extent of country. Soon all the 
social and national elements of the civilized world are 
represented in the new land. Every people, every 
creed, every class of society has contributed its share 
to that wonderful mixture out of which is to grow the 
great nation of the new Avorld. It is true, the Anglo- 
Saxon establishes and maintains his ascendency, but 
without absolutely absorbing the other national 
elements. They modify each other, and their pecuhar 
characteristics are to be blended together by the all- 
assimilating power of freedom. This is the origin of 
the American nationality, which did not spring from 
one family, one tribe, one country, but incorporates 
the vigorous elements of all civilized nations on earth. 
(Applause.) 

This fact is not without great importance. It is an 
essential link in the chain of historical development. 
The student of history cannot fail to notice that when 
new periods of civilization break upon humanity, the 
people of the earth cannot maintain their national 
relations. New ideas are to be carried out by 3 oung 
nations. From time to time, violent, irresistible 
hurricanes sweep over the world, blowing the most 
different elements of the human family together, 
which by mingling reinvigorate each other, and the 
general confusion then becomes the starting-point of 
a new period of progress. Nations which have long 
subsisted exclusively on their own resources, will 
gradually lose their original vigor, and die the death of 
decrepitude. But mankind becomes young again b}^ 
its different elements being shaken together, by race 
crossing race, and mind penetrating mind. (Applause.) 



18 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

The oldest traditions of history speak of such great 
revulsions and general migrations, and if we could but 
lift the veil which covers the remotest history of 
Asiatic tribes, we should discover the first scenes and 
acts of the drama, of which the downfall of the Roman 
empire is a portion. When that empire had exhausted 
its natural vitality, the dark forests of the North 
poured forth a barbarous but vigorous multitude, 
who trampled into ruins the decrepit civilization of 
the Roman world, but infused new blood into the veins 
of old Europe, grasping the great ideas of Christianity 
with a bloody but firm hand — and a new period of 
original progress sprang out of the seeming devastation. 
The German element took the helm of history. But, 
in the course of time, the development of things arrived 
at a new turning-point. The spirit of individualism 
took possession of the heart of civilized humanity, 
and the reformatory movement of the sixteenth cen- 
tury was its expression. But continental Europe 
appeared unable to incorporate the new and progres- 
sive ideas growing out of that spirit, in organic political 
institutions. While the heart of Europe was ravaged 
by a series of religious wars, the Anglo-Saxons of 
England attempted what other nations seemed unable 
to accomplish. But they also clung too fast to the 
traditions of past centuries; they failed in separating 
the Church from the State, and did not realize the 
cosmopolitan tendency of the new principle. Then 
the time of a new migration was at hand, and that 
migration rolled its waves toward America. (Applause.) 
The old process repeated itself under new forms, 
milder and more congenial to the humane ideas it 
represented. It is now not a barbarous multitude 



TRUE AMERICANISM 19 

pouncing upon old and decrepit empires; not a violent 
concussion of tribes accompanied by all the horrors of 
general destruction; but we see the vigorous elements 
of all nations, we see the Anglo-Saxon, the leader in 
the practical movement, with his spirit of independence, 
of daring enterprise, and of indomitable perseverance; 
the German, the original leader in the movement of 
ideas, with his spirit of inquiry and his quiet and 
thoughtful application; the Celt, with the impulsive 
vivacity of his race; the Frenchman, the Scandina\dan, 
the Scot, the Hollander, the Spaniard, and Italian — 
all these peaceably congregating and mingling together 
on virgin soil, where the backwoodsman's hatchet is 
the only battle-axe of civilization; led together by the 
irresistible attraction of free and broad principles; 
undertaking to commence a new era in the history 
of the world, without first destroying the results of the 
progress of past periods; undertaking to found a new 
cosmopolitan nation without marching over the dead 
bodies of slain millions. Thus was founded the great 
colony of free humanity, which has not old England 
alone, but the world, for its mother-country. (Cheers.) 

This idea is, perhaps, not palatable to those who 
pride themselves on their unadulterated Anglo-Saxon- 
dom. To them I have to say, that the destinies of 
men are often greater than men themselves, and that 
a good many are swerving from the path of glory by 
not obeying the true instincts of their nature, and by 
sacrificing their mission to one-sided pride. (Applause.) 

The Anglo-Saxon may justly ,be proud of the growth 
and development of this country, and if he ascribes 
most of it to the undaunted spirit of his race, we may 
not accuse him of overweening self-glorification. He 



20 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

possesses, in an eminent degree, the enviable talent 
of acting when others only think; of promptly execut- 
ing his own ideas, and of appropriating the ideas of 
other people to his own use. (Laughter.) There is, 
perhaps, no other race that, at so early a day, would 
have founded the stern democracy of the Plymouth 
settlement, no other race that would have defied 
the trials and hardships of the original settler's life so 
victoriously. No other race, perhaps, possesses in so 
high a degree not only the daring spirit of independent 
enterprise, but at the same time stubborn steadfast- 
ness necessary to the final execution of great designs. 
The Anglo-Saxon spirit has been the locomotive of 
progress (applause) ; but do not forget, that this loco- 
motive would be of little use to the world, if it refused 
to draw its train over the iron highwa}^, and carry its 
valuable freight toward its destination; that train 
consists of the vigorous elements of all nations; that 
freight is the vital ideas of our age; that destination 
is universal freedom and the ideal development of 
man. (Cheers.) That is the true greatness of the 
Anglo-Saxon race; that ought to be the source of 
Anglo-Saxon pride. I esteem the son who is proud 
of his father, if, at the same time, he is worthy of him. 
Thus, I say, was founded the colony of free humanity 
on virgin soil. The youthful elements which con- 
stitute people of the new world, cannot submit to 
rules which are not of their own making; they must 
throw off the fetters which bind them to an old decrepit 
order of things. They resolve to enter the great 
family of nations as an independent member. And 
in the colony of free humanity, whose mother-country 
is the world, they establish the Republic of equal rights, 



TRUE AMERICANISM 21 

where the title of manhood is the title to citizenship. 
(Applause.) My friends, if I had a thousand tongues, 
and a voice strong as the thunder of heaven, thej^ 
would not be sufficient to impress upon your minds 
forcibly enough the greatness of this idea, the over- 
shadowing glory of this result. This was the dream 
of the truest friends of man from the beginning; for 
this the noblest blood of martyrs has been shed; for 
this has mankind waded through seas of blood and 
tears. There it is now; there it stands, the noble 
fabric in all the splendor of reality. 

They speak of the greatness of the Roman Republic! 
Oh, sir, if I could call the proudest of Romans from his 
grave, I would take him by the hand and say to him: 
Look at this picture, and at this! The greatness of 
thy Roman Republic consisted in its despotic rule 
over the world ; the greatness of the American Republic 
consists in the secured right of man to govern himself. 
(Applause.) The dignity of the Roman citizen con- 
sisted in his exclusive privileges; the dignity of the 
American citizen consists in his holding the natural 
rights of his neighbor just as sacred as his own. (Con- 
tinued applause.) The Roman Republic recognized 
and protected the rights of the citizen, at the same time 
disregarding and leaving unprotected the rights of 
man; Roman Citizenship was founded upon monopoly, 
not upon the claims of hum^an nature. What 
the citizen of Rome claimed for himself, he did not 
respect in others; his own greatness was his only 
object; his own liberty, as he regarded it, gave hjm the 
privilege to oppress his fellow-beings. His democ- 
racy, instead of elevating mankind to its own level, 
trampled the rights of man into the dust. The security 



22 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

of the Roman Republic, therefore, consisted in the 
power of the sword; the security of the American 
Republic rests in the equality of human rights! (Loud 
applause.) The Roman Republic perished by the 
sword; the American Republic will stand as long as 
the equality of human rights remains inviolate. 
(Cheers.) Which of the two Republics is the greater — 
the Republic of the Roman, or the Republic of man? 

Sir, I wish the words of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, 'Hhat all men are created free and equal, 
and are endowed with certain inalienable rights," 
were inscribed upon every gate-post within the limits 
of this Republic. From this principle the Revolu- 
tionary Fathers derived their claim to independence; 
upon this they founded the institutions of this country, 
and the whole structure was to be the living incar- 
nation of this idea. This principle contains the pro- 
gramme of our political existence. It is the most pro- 
gressive, and at the same time the most conservative 
one; the most progressive, for it takes even the lowliest 
members of the human family out of their degradation, 
and inspires them with the elevating consciousness 
of equal human dignity; the most conservative, for it 
makes a common cause of individual rights. (Tumultu- 
ous applause.) From the equality of rights springs 
identity of our highest interests; you cannot subvert 
your neighbor's rights without striking a dangerous 
blow at your own. And when the rights of one can- 
not be infringed without finding a ready defence in 
all others who defend their own rights in defending 
his, then, and only then, are the rights of all safe against 
the usurpations of governmental authority. 

This general identity of interests is the only thing 



TRUE AMERICANISM 23 

that can guarantee the stability of democratic insti- 
tutions. Equahty of rights, embodied in general 
self-government, is the great moral element of true 
democracy; it is the only reliable safety-valve in the 
machinery of modern society. There is the solid 
foundation of our system of government; there is our 
mission; there is our greatness; there is our safety; 
there, and nowhere else! This is true Americanism, 
and to this I pay the tribute of my devotion. (Long 
and loud applause.) 

Shall I point out to you the consequences of a 
deviation from this principle? Look at the Slave 
States. There is a class of men who are deprived of 
their natural rights. But this is not the only deplor- 
able feature of that peculiar organization of society. 
Equally deplorable is it, that there is another class of 
men who keep the former in subjection. That there 
are slaves is bad; but almost worse is it, that there are 
masters. Are not the masters freemen? No, sir! 
Where is their liberty of the press? Where is their 
liberty of speech? Where is the man among them 
who dares to advocate openly principles not in strict 
accordance with the ruling system? They speak of 
a republican form of government — they speak of 
democracy, but the despotic spirit of slavery and 
mastership combined pervades their whole political 
life Uke a liquid poison. They do not dare to be free, 
lest the spirit of liberty become contagious. The 
system of slavery has enslaved them all, master as 
well as slave. (Applause; ''true!'") What is the 
cause of all this? It is that you cannot deny one 
class of society the full measure of their natural rights 
without imposing restraints upon your own liberty. 



24 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

If you want to be free, there is but one way; it is to 
guarantee an equally full measure of libert}^ to all 
your neighbors. There is no other. 

True, there are difficulties connected with an organi- 
zation of society founded upon the basis of equal 
rights. Nobody denies it. A large number of those 
who come to you from foreign lands are not as capable 
of taking part in the administration of government 
as the man who was fortunate enough to drink the 
milk of liberty in his cradle. And certain reUgious 
denominations do, perhaps, nourish principles which 
are hardly in accordance with the doctrines of true 
democracy. There is a conglomeration on this con- 
tinent of heterogeneous elements; there is a warfare 
of clashing interests and unruly aspirations; and with 
all this, our democratic system gives rights to the 
ignorant and power to the inexperienced. And the 
billows of passion v.dll lash the sides of the ship, and 
the storm of party warfare will bend its masts, and the 
pusillanimous will cry out — ^'Master, master, we 
perish! " But the genius of true democracy will 
arise from his slumber, and rebuke the winds and 
the raging of the water, and say unto them — ''Where 
is your faith?" Aye, where is the faith that led the 
fathers of this republic to invite the weary and bur- 
dened of all nations to the enjoyment of equal rights? 
Where is that broad and generous confidence in the 
efficiency of true democratic institutions? Has the 
present generation forgotten that true democracy 
bears in itself the remedy for all the difficulties that 
may grow out of it? 

It is an old dodge of the advocates of despotism 
throughout the world, that the people who are not 



TRUE AMERICANISM 25 

experienced in self-government, are not fit for the 
exercise of self-government, and must first be educated 
under the rule of a superior authority. But at the 
same time the advocates of despotism will never offer 
them an opportunity to acquire experience in self- 
government, lest they suddenly become fit for its 
independent exercise. To this treacherous sophistry 
the fathers of this republic opposed the noble doctrine, 
that liberty is the best school for liberty, and that 
self-government cannot be learned but by practising 
it. (Loud applause.) This, sir, is a truly American 
idea; this is true Americanism, and to this I pay the 
tribute of my devotion. (Cheers.) 

Oh, sir, there is a wonderful vitality in true democ- 
racy, founded upon the equality of rights. There is 
an inexhaustible power of resistance in that system 
of government, which makes the protection of individ- 
ual rights a matter of common interest. If preserved 
in its purity, there is no warfare of opinions which can 
endanger it — there is no conspiracy of despotic aspira- 
tions that can destroy it. But if not preserved in its 
purity! There are dangers which only blindness 
can not see, and which only stubborn party prejudice 
will not see. 

I have already called your attention to the despotic 
tendency of the slave-holding system. I need not 
enlarge upon it; I need not describe how the existence 
of slavery in the South affected and demoralized even 
the political life of the free States; how they attempted 
to press us, you and me, into the posse of the slave- 
catcher by that abominable act, which, worse than the 
''alien and sedition laws," still disgraces our statute- 
book; how the ruling party, which has devoted itself 



26 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

to the service of that despotic interest, shrinks from 
no violation of good faith, from no adulteration of the 
constitutional compact, from no encroachment upon 
natural right, from no treacherous abandonment of 
fundamental principles. And I do not hesitate to 
prophesy, that if the theories engendered by the insti- 
tution of slavery be suffered to outgrow the equahzing 
tendency of true democracy, the American Republic 
will, at no distant day, crumble down under the burden 
of the laws and measures which the ruling interest 
will demand for its protection, and its name will be 
added to the sad catalogue of the broken hopes of 
humanity. 

But the mischief does not come from that side alone ; 
it is in things of small beginning, but fearful in their 
growth. One of these is the propensity of men to 
lose sight of fundamental principles, when passing 
abuses are to be corrected. 

Is it not wonderful how nations who have won 
their Hberty by the severest struggles, become so 
easily impatient of the small inconveniences and pas- 
sing difficulties, which are almost inseparably connected 
with the practical working of general self-government? 
How they so easily, forget that rights may be abused, 
and yet remain inalienable rights? Europe has 
witnessed many an attempt for the estabhshment of 
democratic institutions; some of them were at first 
successful, and the people were free, but the abuses 
and inconveniences connected with liberty became 
at once apparent. Then the ruhng classes of society, 
in order to get rid of the abuses, restricted liberty; 
they did, indeed, get rid of the abuses, but they got 
rid of liberty at the same time. You heard liberal 



TRUE AMERICANISM 27 

governments there speak of protecting and regulating 
the liberty of the press; and, in order to prevent that 
liberty from being abused, they adopted measures, 
apparently harmless at first, which ultimately resulted 
in an absolute censorship. Would it be much better 
if we, recognizing the right of man to the exercise of 
self-government, should, in order to protect the purity 
of the ballot-box, restrict the right of suffrage? 

Liberty, sir, is like a spirited housewife; she will 
have her whims, she will be somewhat unruly some- 
times, and, like so many husbands, you cannot always 
have it all 3^our own way. She may spoil your favorite 
dish sometimes; but will you, therefore, at once smash 
her china, break her kettles, and shut her out from the 
kitchen? Let her practise, let her try again and again, 
and even when she makes a mistake, encourage her 
with a benignant smile, and your broth Tvall be right 
after a while. (Laughter.) But meddle with her 
concerns, tease her, bore her, and your little squabbles, 
spirited as she is, will ultimately result in a divorce. 
What then? It is one of Jefferson's wisest words that 
"he would much rather be exposed to the inconven- 
iences arising from too much liberty, than to those 
arising from too small a degree of it." (Immense 
applause.) It is a matter of historical experience, 
that nothing that is wrong in principle can be right 
in practice. (Sensation.) People are apt to delude 
themselves on that point; but the ultimate result will 
always prove the truth of the maxim. A violation 
of equal rights can never serve to maintain institutions 
which are founded upon equal rights. (Loud applause.) 
A contrary policy is not only pusillanimous and small, 
but it is senseless. It reminds me of the soldier who, 



28 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

for fear of being shot in battle, committed suicide on 
the march ; or of the man who would /cut off his foot, 
because he had a corn on his toe. (Laughter.) It 
is that ridiculous policy of premature despair, which 
commences to throw the freight overboard when there 
is a suspicious cloud in the sky. 

Another danger for the safety of our institutions, 
and perhaps the most formidable one, arises from the 
general propensity of political parties and public men 
to act on a policy of mere expediency, and to sacrifice 
principle to local and temporary success. (Great 
sensation.) And here, sir, let me address a solemn 
appeal to the consciences of those with whom I am 
proud to struggle side by side against human |thraldom. 

You hate kingcraft, and you would sacrifice j^our 
fortunes and your lives in order to prevent its estab- 
lishment on the soil of this Republic. But let me tell 
you that the rule of political parties which sacrifice 
principle to expediency, is no less dangerous, no less 
disastrous, no less aggressive, of no less despotic a 
nature, than the rule of monarchs. Do not indulge in 
the delusion, that in order to make a government fair 
and liberal, the only thing necessary is to make it elect- 
ive. When a political party in power, however liberal 
their principles may be, have once adopted the poUcy of 
knocking down their opponents instead of voting them 
down, there is an end of justice and equal rights. (Ap- 
plause.) The history of the world shows no example of 
a more arbitrary despotism, than that exercised by the 
party which ruled the National Assembly of France in 
the bloodiest days of the great French Revolution. I 
will not discuss here what might have been done, and 
what not, in those times of a fearful crisis; but I will 



TRUE AMERICANISM 29 

say that they tried to estabHsh Uberty by means of 
despotism, and that in her gigantic struggle against 
the united monarchs of Europe, revokitionary France 
won the victory, but lost her liberty. 

Remember the shout of indignation that went all 
over the Northern States when we heard that the 
border ruffians of Kansas had crowded the free-state 
men away from the polls and had not allowed them 
to vote. That indignation was just, not only because 
the men who were thus terrorized were free-state men 
and friends of liberty, but because they were deprived 
of their right of suffrage, and because the government 
of that territory was placed on the basis of force, 
instead of equal rights. Sir, if ever the party of 
liberty should use their local predominance for the pur- 
pose of disarming their opponents instead of convinc- 
ing them, they will but follow the example set by the 
ruffians of Kansas, although legislative enactments 
may be a genteeler weapon than the revolver and 
bowie knife. (Cheering.) They may perhaps achieve 
some petty local success, they may gain some small 
temporary advantage, but they will help to introduce a 
system of action into our poHtics which will gradually 
undermine the very foundations upon which our 
republican edifice rests. Of all the dangers and diffi- 
culties that beset us, there is none more horrible 
than the hideous monster, whose name is ''Proscription 
for opinion's sake." (Cheers, and cries of ''good".) 
I am an anti-slavery man, and I have a right to my 
opinion in South Carolina just as well as in Massachu- 
setts. My neighbor is a pro-slavery man; I may be 
sorry for it, but I solemnly acknowledge his right to 
his opinion in Massachusetts as well as in South 



30 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

Carolina. You tell me, that for my opinion they 
would mob me in South Carolina? Sir, there is the 
difference between South Carolina and Massachusetts. 
(Prolonged cheering.) There is the difference between 
an anti-slavery man, who is a freeman, and a slave- 
holder, who is himself a slave. (Continued applause.) 

Our present issues will pass away. The slavery 
question will be settled, liberty will be triumphant, 
and other matters of difference will divide the political 
parties of this country. What if we, in our struggle 
against slavery, had removed the solid basis of equal 
rights, on which such new matters of difference may 
be peaceably settled? What if we had based the 
institutions of this country upon a difference of rights 
between different classes of people? What if, in 
destroying the generality of natural rights, we had 
resolved them into privileges? There is a thing w^hich 
stands above the command of the most ingenious of 
politicians : it is the logic of things and events. It cannot 
be turned and twisted by artificial arrangements and 
delusive settlements; it will go its own way with the 
steady step of fate. It will force you, with uncom- 
promising severity, to choose between two social 
organizations, one of which is founded upon privilege, 
and the other upon the doctrine of equal rights. 

Force instead of right, privilege instead of equality, 
expediency instead of principle, being once the lead- 
ing motives of your policy, you will have no power to 
stem the current. There will be new abuses to be cor- 
rected, new inconveniences to be remedied, new sup- 
posed dangers to be obviated, new equally exacting 
ends to be subserved, and your encroachments upon 
the natural rights of your opponents now, will be 



TRUE AMERICANISM 31 

used as welcome precedents for the mutual oppres- 
sion of parties then. Having once knowingly disre- 
garded the doctrine of equal rights, the ruling parties 
will soon accustom themselves to consult only their 
interests where fundamental principles are at stake. 
Those who lead us into this channel will be like the 
sorcerer who knew the art [of making a giant snake. 
And when he had made it, he forgot the charm-word 
that would destroy it again. And the giant snake 
threw its horrid coils around him, and the unfortunate 
man was choked to death by the monster of his own 
creation. 

Sir, I am coming to the close of my remarks. But 
I cannot refrain from alluding to a circumstance 
which concerns myself. I understand it has been 
said, that in speaking a few words on the principles 
of Jeffersonian democracy a few evenings since, I 
had attempted to interfere with the home affairs of 
this State, and to dictate to the Republicans their 
policy. Ah, sir, is there a man in Massachusetts, 
except he be a servant of the slave-power, who cannot 
hear me advocate the equal rights of man, without 
feeling serious pangs of conscience? (Laughter.) Is 
there a son of this glorious old commonwealth who 
cannot hear me draw logical conclusions from the 
Declaration of Independence — who cannot hear me 
speak of the natural right of man to the exercise of 
self-government, without feeling a blush fluttering 
upon his cheeks? If so, sir, I am sorry for him; it is 
his fault, not mine. (Loud applause.) 

Interfere with your local matters! How could I? 
What influence could I, an humble stranger among 
you, exercise on the action of Massachusetts? But 



32 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

one thing I must tell you. It ought never to be for- 
gotten that this old Commonwealth occupies a repre- 
sentative position. Her history is familiar to the 
nation; even South Carolina knows it. (Laughter 
and applause.) The nation is so accustomed to admire 
her glorious deeds for freedom, that with this expecta- 
tion their eyes are turned upon her. Massachusetts 
can do nothing in secret; Massachusetts can do nothing 
for herself alone; every one of her acts involves a 
hundred-fold responsibility. What Massachusetts does 
is felt from the Atlantic to the Pacific. But Massa- 
chusetts need only be herself, in order to be great. 
This is her position among the Free States, recognized 
by all. Can there be a more honorable one? Sons 
of Massachusetts, you may be proud of it. Do not 
forget that from her greatness you cannot separate 
your responsibihty. 

No, I will not meddle with your home concerns. 
I will, however, say a word for the West. Strenuous 
advocate of individual rights and of local self-govern- 
ment as I am, if you ever hear of any movement in the 
West against the integrity of the fundamental prin- 
ciples underlying our system of government, I invite 
you, I entreat you, I conjure you, come one and all, 
and make our prairies resound and our forests shake, 
and our ears ring and tingle, with your appeals for the 
equal rights of man. (Loud and continued cheering.) 

Sir, I was to speak on Republicanism in the West, 
and so I did. This is Western republicanism. These 
are its principles, and I am proud to say its principles 
are its policy. These are the, ideas which have rallied 
round the banner of liberty not only the natives of 
the soil, but an innumerable host of Germans, Scan- 



TRUE AMERICANISM 33 

dinavians, Scotchmen, Frenchmen, and a goodly 
number of Irishmen, 'also. And here I tell you, those 
are mistaken who^believe that the Irish heart is devoid 
of those noble impulses which will lead him to the side 
of justice, where he sees his own rights respected and 
unendangered. (Applause.) Under this banner, all 
the languages of civilized mankind are spoken, every 
creed is protected, every right is sacred. There stands 
every element of Western society, with enthusiasm for 
a great cause, with confidence in each other, with 
honor to themselves. This is the banner floating 
over the glorious valley which stretches from the 
Western slope of the Alleghanies to the Rocky Moun- 
tains — that valley of Jehoshaphat, where the nations 
of the world assemble to celebrate the resurrection 
of human freedom. (Tremendous applause.) The 
inscription on that banner is not ''Opposition to the 
Democratic party for the 'sake of placing a new set 
of men into office;" for this battle cry of speculators 
our hearts have no response. Nor is it '' Restriction 
of slavery and restriction of the right of suffrage," for 
this — believe my words, I entreat you — this would be 
the signal of deserved, inevitable, and disgraceful 
defeat. But the inscription is " Liberty and equal 
rights, common to all as the air of Heaven — Liberty 
and equal rights, one and inseparable! " (Enthusiastic 
cheers.) 

With this banner we stand before the world. In 
this sign — in this sign alone and no other — there is 
victory. And thus, sir, we mean to realize the great 
cosmopolitan idea, upon which the existence of the 
American nation rests. Thus we mean to fulfill the 
great mission of true Americanism — thus we mean 



34 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

to answer the anxious question of down-trodden 
humanity — ^' Has man the faculty to be free and to 
govern himself? " The answer is a triumphant ''Aye," 
thundering into the ears of the despots of the old w^orld 
that "a man is a man for all that "; proclaiming to the 
oppressed that they are held in subjection on fake 
pretenses; cheering the hearts of the despondent friends 
of man with consolation and renewed confidence. 

This is true Americanism, clasping mankind to its 
great heart. Under its banner we march; let the world 
follow. (Loud applause, and three cheers for the 
champion of freedom in the West.) 



LIFE OF HENRY W. GRADY 



LIFE OF HENRY W. GRADY 

Henry Woofden Grady was born at Athens, 
Georgia, May 17, 1851. He gained his school and 
college education in Georgia and Virginia. After 
being graduated from the University of Georgia in 
1868 he became a student at the University of Virginia 
for a part of one j^ear. In 1870 he married Miss Julia 
King of Athens, Georgia. 

At about the same time he entered journalistic 
work by way of " The Atlanta Constitution." His 
first articles were letters dealing with the resources 
and possibilities of Georgia, as seen by him during 
a tour of the state that he had made for the purpose 
of gathering material. The accuracy and good sense 
of these letters, together vaih. the favorable impression 
that he made during a visit in New York, secured for 
Grady the position of Georgia correspondent of the 
New York Herald. 

From 1870 to 1880 Mr. Grady was engaged in a 
number of newspaper publishing ventures, all of which 
failed financially. In 1880 he bought for $20,000 a 
quarter interest in '' The Atlanta Constitution " and 
for nine years contributed to the editorial columns 
and influenced the general policy of that paper. 

His articles gained for him a wider field in the maga- 
zines and attracted the attention of the general 
public to his intelligent and sympathetic views on 
conditions in the South and the future of the negro 

37 



38 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

race. Very naturally he was in demand as a public 
speaker. The speech selected for this book astonished 
even his friends. It was while carrying on this 
missionary work of reconciliation of the North and the 
South, that he met his death. He addressed the 
Merchants Club of Boston on " The Future of the 
Negro." On his way to keep this engagement during 
the severe weather of 1889 he caught cold, developed 
pneumonia, and died on December 23. 

Various " libraries of literature " contain some of 
his speeches. His complete public writings may be 
found in '^ Complete Orations and Speeches " edited 
by E. D. B. Shuter. 



THE NEW SOUTH 



THE NEW SOUTH 

A Speech by Henry W. Grady. 

There was a South of slavery and secession — 
that South is dead. There is a South of union and 
freedom — that South, thank God, is living, breath- 
ing, growing every hour." 

These words, delivered from the immortal lips 
of Benjamin H. Hill, at Tammany Hall in 1866, true 
then and truer now, I shall make my text to-night. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen, let me express to 
you my appreciation of the kindness by which I am 
permitted to address you. I make this abrupt acknowl- 
edgment advisedly, for I feel that if, when I raise my 
provincial voice in this ancient and august presence, 
I could find courage for no more than the opening 
sentence, it would be well if in that sentence I had 
met in a rough sense my obligation as a guest, and 
had perished, so to speak, with courtesy on my lips 
and grace in my heart. Permitted, through your 
kindness, to catch my second wind, let me say that 
I appreciate the significance of being the first South- 
erner to speak at this board, which bears the substance, 
if it surpasses the semblance, of original New England 
hospitaHty, and honors the sentiment that in turn 
honors you, but in which my personality is lost and 
the compliment to my people made plain. 

Pardon me one word, Mr. President, spoken for the 
sole purpose of getting into the volumes that go out 

41 



42 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

annually, freighted with the rich eloquence of your 
speakers, the fact that the Cavalier as well as the 
Puritan was on the continent in its early days, and 
that he was '' up and able to be about." I have read 
your books carefully and I find no mention of that 
fact, which seems an important one to me for pre- 
serving a sort of historical equihbrium, if for nothing 
else. 

Let me remind you that the Virginia Cavalier 
first challenged France on the continent; that Cava- 
lier John Smith gave New England its very name, 
and was so pleased wdth the job that he has been 
handing his own name around ever since; and that 
while Miles Standish was cutting off men's ears for 
courting a girl without her parents' consent, and 
forbade men to kiss their wives on Sunday, the Cava- 
lier was courting everything in sight, and that the 
Almighty had vouchsafed great increase to the Cava- 
lier Colonies, the huts in the wilderness being as full 
as the nests in the woods. 

But having incorporated the Cavalier as a fact in 
your charming little books, I shall let him work out 
his own salvation, as he has always done, with engag- 
ing gallantry, and we will hold no controversy as to 
his merits. Why should we? Neither Puritan nor 
Cavalier long survived as such. The virtues and good 
traditions of both happily still live for the inspiration 
of their sons and the saving of the old fashion. But 
both Puritan and Cavalier were lost in the storm 
of the first Revolution, and the American citizen, 
supplanting both and stronger than either, took 
possession of the Republic bought by their common 
blood and fashioned to wisdom, and charged himself 



THE NEW SOUTH 43 

with teaching men government and estabhshing the 
voice of the people as the voice of Gocl. 

My friends, Doctor Talmage has told you that 
the typical American has yet to come. Let me tell 
you that he has already come. Great types, like 
valuable plants, are slow to flower and fruit. But 
from the union of these Colonies, Puritans and Cava- 
liers, from the straightening of their purposes and the 
crossing of their blood, slow perfecting through a 
century, came he who stands as the first typical 
American, the first who comprehended within him- 
self all the strength and gentleness, all the majesty 
and gi-ace of this Republic — Abraham Lincoln. 

He was the sum of Puritan and Cavalier, for in 
his ardent nature were fused the virtues of both, 
and in the depths of his great soul the faults of both 
were lost. He was greater than Puritan, greater than 
Cavalier, in that he was American, and that in his 
honest form were first gathered the vast and thrilling 
forces of his ideal government — charging it with 
such tremendous meaning and elevating it above 
human suffering that martyrdom, tho infamously 
aimed, came as a fitting crown to a life consecrated 
from the cradle to human liberty. Let us, each cher- 
ishing the traditions and honoring his fathers, build 
with reverend hands to the type of this simple but 
subHme fife, in which all types are honored, and in 
our common glory as Americans there will be plenty 
and to spare for your forefathers and for mine. 

Doctor Talmage has drawn for you, with a master's 
hand, the picture of your returning armies. He has 
told you how, in the pomp and circumstance of war, 
they came back to you, marching with proud and 



44 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

victorious tread, reading their glory in a nation's 
eyes! — Will you bear with me while I tell you of 
another army that sought its home at the close of the 
late war — an army that marched home in defeat and 
not in victory — in pathos and not in splendor, but 
in glory that equaled yours, and to hearts as loving 
as ever welcomed heroes home! Let me picture to 
you the foot-sore Confederate soldier, as, buttoning 
up in his faded gray jacket the parole which was to 
bear testimony to his children of his fidelity and faith, 
he turned his face southward from Appomattox in 
April, 1865. 

Think of him as, ragged, half-starved, heavy- 
hearted, enfeebled by want and wounds, having 
fought to exhaustion, he surrenders his gun, wrings 
the hands of his comrades in silence, and lifting his 
tear-stained and pallid face for the last time to the 
graves that dot old Virginia hills, pulls his gray cap 
over his brow and begins the slow and faithful journey. 
What does he find — let me ask you who went to your 
homes eager to find, in the welcome you had justly 
earned, full payment for four years' sacrifice — what 
does he find when, having followed the battle-stained 
cross against overwhelming odds, dreading death 
not half so much as surrender, he reaches the home 
he left so prosperous and beautiful? 

He finds his house in ruins, his farm devastated, 
his slaves free, his stock killed, his barns empty, his 
trade destroyed, his money worthless, his social 
system, feudal in its magnificence, swept away; his 
people without law or legal status, his comrades slain, 
and the burdens of others heavy on his shoulders. 
Crushed by defeat, his very traditions are gone. 



THE NEW SOUTH 45 

Without money, credit, employment, material, or 
training, and, besides all this, confronted with the 
gravest problem that ever met human intelligence, — 
the establishing of a status for the vast body of his 
liberated slaves. 

What does he do — this hero in gray with a heart 
of gold? Does he sit down in sullenness and despair? 
Not for a day. Surely God, who had stripped him 
of his prosperity, inspired him in his adversity. As 
ruin was never before so overwhelming, never was 
restoration swifter. The soldier stepped from the 
trenches into the furrow; horses that had charged 
Federal guns marched before the plow, and fields that 
ran red with human blood in April were green with 
the harvest in June; women reared in luxury cut up 
their dresses and made breeches for their husbands, 
and, with a patience and heroism that fit women 
always as a garment, gave their hands to work. There 
was httle bitterness in all this. Cheerfulness and 
frankness prevailed. 

I want to say to General Sherman, who is considered 
an able man in our parts, though some people think 
he is a kind of careless man about fire, that from 
the ashes he left us in 1864 we have raised a brave 
and beautiful city; that somehow or other we have 
caught the sunshine in the bricks and mortar of our 
homes, and have builded therein not one ignoble 
prejudice or memory. 

But what is the sum of our work? We have found 
out that in the summing up the free negro counts 
more than he did as a slave. We have planted the 
schoolhouse on the hilltop and made it free to white 
and black. We have sowed towns and cities in the 



46 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

place of theories, and put business above politics. 
We have challenged your spinners in Massachusetts 
and your iron-makers in Pennsylvania. We have 
learned that the $400,000,000 annually received 
from our cotton crop will make us rich when the 
supplies that make it are home-raised. We have 
reduced the commercial rate of interest from twenty- 
four to six per cent, and are floating four per cent 
bonds. 

We have learned that one Northern immigrant 
is worth fifty foreigners; and have smoothed the 
path to southward, wiped out the place where Ma.son 
and Dixon's fine used to be, and hung out our latch- 
string to you and yours. We have reached the point 
that marks perfect harmony in every household, 
when the husband confesses that the pies which his 
wife cooks are as good as those his mother used to bake ; 
and we admit that the sun shines as brightly and the 
moon as softly as it did before the war. We have 
established thrift in city and country. We have 
fallen in love with our work. We have restored 
comfort to homes from which culture and elegance 
never departed. We have let economy take root 
and spread among us as rank as the crabgrass which 
sprung from Sherman's cavalry camps, until we are 
ready to lay odds on the Georgia Yankee as he manu- 
factures relics of the battlefield in a one-story shanty 
and squeezes pure olive-oil out of his cottonseed, 
against any Down-Easter that ever swapped wooden 
nutmegs for flannel sausage in the valleys of Vermont. 
Above all, we know that we have achieved in these 
" piping times of peace " a fuller independence for 
the South than that which our fathers sought to win 



THE NEW SOUTH 47 

in the forum by their eloquence or compel in the field 
by their swords. 

It is a rare privilege, sir, to have had part, however 
humble, in this work. Never was nobler duty confided 
to human hands than the uplifting and upbuilding 
of the prostrate and bleeding South — misguided, per- 
haps, but beautiful in her suffering, and honest, brave, 
and generous always. In the record of her social, 
industrial, and poUtical illustration we await with 
confidence the verdict of the world. 

But what of the negro? Have we solved the prob- 
lem he presents or progressed in honor and equity 
toward solution? Let the record speak to the point. 
No section shows a more prosperous laboring popula- 
tion than the negroes of the South; none in fuller 
sympathy with the employing and land-owning 
class. He shares our school fund, has the fullest 
protection of our laws and the friendship of our people. 
Self-interest as well as honor demand that he should 
have this. Our future, our very existence, depend 
upon working out this problem in full and exact 
justice. 

We understand that when Lincoln signed the 
Emancipation Proclamation, your victory was assured, 
for he then committed you to the cause of human 
liberty, against which the arms of men can not prevail — 
while those of our statesmen who trusted to make 
slavery the cornerstone of the Confederacy doomed 
us to defeat as far as they could, committing us to 
a cause that reason could not defend or the sword 
maintain in sight of advancing civilization. 

Had Mr. Toombs said, which he did not say, " that 
he would call the roll of his slaves at the foot of Bunker 



48 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

Hill," he would have been foolish, for he might have 
known that whenever slavery became entangled in 
war it must perish, and that the chattel in human 
flesh ended for ever in New England when your fathers 
— not to be blamed for parting with what did not 
pay — sold their slaves to our fathers — not to be 
praised for knowing a paying thing when they 
saw it. 

The relations of the Southern people with the 
negro are close and cordial. We remember with 
what fideUty for four years he guarded our defense- 
less women and children, whose husbands and fathers 
were fighting against his freedom. To his eternal 
credit be it said that whenever he struck a blow for 
his own liberty he fought in open battle, and when at 
last he raised his black and humble hands that the 
shackles might be struck off, those hands were innocent 
of wrong against his helpless charges, and worthy to 
be taken in loving grasp by every man who honors 
loyalty and devotion. 

Ruffians have maltreated him, rascals have misled 
him, philanthropists established a bank for him, 
but the South, with the North, protests against injus- 
tice to this simple and sincere people. To liberty 
and enfranchisement is as far as law can carry the 
negro. The rest must be left to conscience and com- 
mon sense. It must be left to those among whom 
his lot is cast, with whom he is indissolubly connected, 
and whose prosperity depends upon their possessing 
his inteUigent sympathy and confidence. Faith has 
been kept with him, in spite of calumnious assertions 
to the contrary by those who assume to speak for 
us or by frank opponents. Faith will be kept with 



THE NEW SOUTH 49 

him in the future, if the South holds her reason and 
integrity. 

But have we kept faith with you? In the fullest 
sense, yes. When Lee surrendered — I do not say when 
Johnston surrendered, because I understand he still 
alludes to the time when he met General Sherman last 
as the time when he determined to abandon any 
further prosecution of the struggle — when Lee sur- 
rendered, I say, and Johnston quit, the South became, 
and has since been, loyal to this Union. 

We fought hard enough to know that we were 
whipped and in perfect frankness accept as final the 
arbitrament of the sword to which we had appealed. 
The South found her jewel in the toad's head of 
defeat. The shackles th:at had held her in narrow 
limitations fell for ever when the shackles of the 
negro slave were broken. Under the old regime the 
negroes were slaves to the South; the South was a 
slave to the system. The old plantation, with its 
simple police regulations and feudal habit, was the 
only tj^pe possible under slavery. Thus was gathered 
in the hands of a splendid and chivalric oligarchy the 
substance that should have been diffused among the 
people, as the rich blood, under certain artificial 
conditions, is gathered at the heart, fiUing that with 
affluent rapture, but leaving the body chill and 
colorless. 

The old South rested everything on slavery and 
agriculture, unconscious that these could neither 
give nor maintain healthy growth. The new South 
presents a perfect democracy, the oUgarchs leading 
in the popular movement — a social system compact 
and closely knitted, less splendid on the surface, but 



50 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

stronger at the core — a hundred farms for every 
plantation, fifty homes for every palace — and a diver- 
sified industry that meets the complex need of this 
complex age. 

The new South is enamored of her new work. Her 
soul is stirred wdth the breath of a new life. The 
light of a grander day is falling fair on her face. She 
is thrilling with the consciousness of growing power 
and prosperity. As she stands upright, full statured 
and equal among the people of the earth, breathing 
the keen air and looking out upon the expanded 
horizon, she understands that her emancipation came 
because through the inscrutable wisdom of God her 
honest purpose was crossed, and her brave armies 
were beaten. 

This is said in no spirit of time-serving or apology. 
The South has nothing for which to apologize. She 
believes that the late struggle between the States was 
war and not rebellion, revolution and not conspiracy, 
and that her convictions were as honest as yours. 
I should be unjust to the dauntless spirit of the South 
and to my own convictions if I did not make this 
plain in this presence. The South has nothing to 
take back. In my native town of Athens is a monu- 
ment that crowns its central hill — a plain, white 
shaft. Deep cut into its shining side is a name dear 
to me above the names of men — that of a brave and 
simple man who died in a brave and simple faith. 

Not for all the glories of New England, from 
Plymouth Rock all the way, would I exchange the 
heritage he left me in his soldier's death. To the 
foot of that I shall send my children's children to 
reverence him who ennobled their name with his 



THE NEW SOUTH 51 

heroic blood. But, sir, speaking from the shadow 
of that memory which I honor as I do nothing else 
on earth, I say that the cause in which he suffered and 
for which he gave his life was adjudged by higher 
and fuller wisdom than his or mine, and I am glad 
that the omniscient God held the balance of battle in 
His Almighty hand and that human slavery was swept 
for ever from American soil, and the American Union 
was saved from the wreck of war. 

This message, Mr. President, comes to you from 
consecrated ground. Every foot of soil about the city 
in which I live is as sacred as a battle-ground of the 
Republic. Every hill that invests it is hallowed to 
you by the blood of your brothers who died for your 
victory, and doubly hallowed to us by the blood of 
those who died hopeless, but undaunted in defeat — 
sacred soil to all of us — rich with memories that make 
us purer and stronger and better — silent but stanch 
witnesses, in its red desolation, of the matchless valor 
of American hearts and the deathless glory of Ameri- 
can arms — speaking an eloquent witness in its white 
peace and prosperity to the indissoluble union of 
American States and the imperishable brotherhood 
of the American people. 

Now, what answer has New England to this message? 
Will she permit the prejudice of war to remain in the 
hearts of the conquerors when it has died in the hearts 
of the conquered? Will she transmit this prejudice 
to the next generation, that in their hearts which 
never felt the generous ardor of conflict it may per- 
petuate itself? W^ill she -vvdthhold, save in strained 
courtesy, the hand which, straight from his soldier's 
heart, Grant offered to Lee at Appomattox? Will 



52 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

she make the vision of a restored and happy people, 
which gathered above the couch of your dying captain, 
filling his heart with grace, touching his lips with 
praise, and glorifying his path to the grave — will she 
make this vision on which the last sigh of his expiring 
soul breathed a benediction, a cheat and delusion? 
If she does, the South, never abject in asking for com- 
radeship, must accept with dignity its refusal; but 
if she does not refuse to accept in frankness and sin- 
cerity this message of good will and friendship, then 
will the prophecy of Webster, delivered in this very 
Society forty years ago amid tremendous applause, 
become true, be verified in its fullest sense, when he 
said: '' Standing hand to hand and clasping hands, 
we should remain united as we have been for sixty 
years, citizens of the same country, members of the 
same government, united, all united now and united 
forever." There have been difficulties, contentions, 
and controversies, but I tell you that in my judgment — 

" those opened eyes, 



Which, Hke the meteors of a troubled heaven, 
All of one nature, of one substance bred. 
Did lately meet in th' intestine shock. 
Shall now, in mutual well-beseeming ranks, 
March all one way." 



LIFE OF JOHN HAY 



LIFE OF JOHN HAY 

The great honors that were paid to John Hay when 
he died in 1905, were tributes to one who had loved 
his fellowmen and done much to promote international 
friendliness. For our own country he had won recogni- 
tion as a world power by putting into practice the 
doctrine of '^magnanimity" that Burke had advocated 
in the previous century. In so doing he had elevated 
the whole spirit of the world powers. Therefore, the 
mourning at his death was not confined to the United 
States but had voice throughout the world. 

John Hay earned this w^orld-wide regard by the 
activities of the last six years of his life. For the work 
of these few years, however, his whole previous life 
was a preparation. 

From Scotch and English ancestors he inherited a 
devotion to principle and a love of humanity that was 
illustrated by his grandfather when he moved from 
Virginia to Indiana because he did not approve of 
slave holding. John Hay's father, a conscientious 
physician, established himself in Salem, Indiana, where 
the son was born on October 8, 1838. The boy was 
''sent East" to college and was graduated with honors 
from Brown University in 1858. He studied law 
with an uncle, Malcolm Hay, in Springfield, 111. Here 
he made the acquaintance of Abraham Lincoln and so 
favorably impressed that self-made lawyer that he had 
the good fortune to enter Lincoln's office. 

55 



56 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

In 1861 he accompanied President Lincoln to Wash- 
ington as assistant secretary. For four years he lived 
in the closest intimacy with Lincoln; indeed their 
relations were almost those of father and son.* As 
Assistant Adjutant General (with rank of Colonel) he 
frequently represented the President at the front 
during the war. He was at Lincoln's bedside during 
the last hours of his chieftain's life. 

From 1865 to 1870 he served as Secretary of the 
Legation in Paris, in Vienna, and in Madrid. His 
keen observation of the politics of France, Austria, 
and Spain and the personal friends that he made, 
helped him in later years when he became chief of our 
diplomatic service. 

From 1870 to 1874 he was editorial writer on the 
*'New York Tribune " under Horace Greeley at a 
salary of $5,000 a year. Greeley thought highly of 
him and said of one of Hay's articles that ''it is the 
finest editorial I have ever read." To this period 
belong his literary publications. ''Jim Bludso" and 
"Little Breeches" had, however, been written during 
his college days. " Pike County Ballads" and "Cas- 
tilian Days" attracted favorable comment then, but 
were later an embarrassment to their author. 

In 1874 Hay married Clara L. Stone of Cleveland, 
Ohio, and moved to that city. His own abundant 
income from his contributions to periodicals and his 
wife's large fortune, enabled him to live a life of quiet 
study and literary activity. In 1881 he and Nicolay 
published their work of fifteen years, " Abraham 

* For a full account of those years, see "Life in the White 
House in the Time of Lincoln" in "Addresses of John Hay," 
and "Abraham Lincoln: a History" by Nicolay and Hay. 



LIFE OF JOHN HAY 57 

Lincoln: A History," the best biography of that 
statesman that has been written. They also edited 
''Lincoln's Complete Works.'' Although these were 
labors of love, yet they brought to the authors large 
financial returns; for The Century Company paid 
$50,000 for only a few selections from ''Abraham 
Lincoln" for periodical publication. A novel entitled 
"Bread Winners," published anon^nnously in 1893, is 
almost positively attributed to John Hay. 

He was Assistant Secretary of State for two years 
under President Hayes. In 1897 he went to London 
as American x\mbassador under President McKinley. 
Here he renewed old acquaintance and gained a fresh 
view of European politics. So highly was he esteemed 
by the English that when the Powers invited the 
Prime Minister to join them in a joint demonstration 
against the United States off the coast of Cuba, the 
Prime Minister replied, "Yes, I was thinking of a 
demonstration, but with the United States." There 
was no joint demonstration. 

In 1898 his public life culminated in the position of 
Secretary of State. The few criticisms of President 
McKinley's choice were soon quieted by the efficiency 
of Secretary Hay Appreciating the necessity for a 
supporting public opinion and understanding the 
nature of newspaper men and their work, he took the 
correspondents into his confidence. Seldom was it 
violated, and never did his frankness work harm to 
state affairs. He negotiated over fifty treaties and 
cleared up several long standing subjects of dispute, 
the most notable of which were the Alaskan Boundary 
Question and the Northern Atlantic Fisheries Question. 
The Panama Canal of to-day is possible because of 



58 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty and because of Secretary 
Hay's masterly handling of the Colombian-Panama 
affair in 1903. 

His fame rests specifically on three achievements. 
First, he won the recognition of the United States as 
a world power. The work begun by Admiral Dewey 
at Manila and advanced by the successful termination 
of the Spanish- American War, was completed by 
Secretary Hay's ''new diplomacy." This consisted 
simply in telling the truth and stating plainly what 
the United States desired — a simple procedure, yet 
extremely disconcerting to European diplomacy. His 
second great accomplishment places him on the world's 
rolKof fame; for the Republic of China owes its oppor- 
tunity for inception to John Hay's magnanimous 
policy during the Boxer uprising of 1900. When 
the Allies were debating whether to support the 
Chinese government or not, General Chaffee, acting 
under orders from the State Department, began his 
march on Peking — whereupon the Allies followed. 
When Secretary Hay protested in a joint note to the 
Powers against the partition of China, all heeded 
except Russia, and that country was punished soon 
after by Japan. When the powers wished to de- 
mand enormous indemnity from China, John Hay 
protested so effectively that the affair was settled on 
very moderate terms.* 

The third great matter in which he was concerned 
was the support of The Hague Tribunal. After that 

* It was the remission of about half of this indemnity by the 
United States and its subsequent use by China to educate 
hundreds of her young men in our country, that led to the 
establishment of the Chinese Republic in 1912. 



LIFE OF JOHN HAY 59 

court had been established, while the world doubted its 
success, Secretary Hay sent the first two cases to it. 
On May 22, 1902, the United States and Mexico 
submitted the Pious Fund dispute concerning church 
lands in California to The Hague Tril^unal, and shortly 
after the United States through the Secretary of State 
persuaded Venezuela to submit her complaints against 
the forcible collection of claims by England, Germany, 
and Italy to the same Tribunal instead of to President 
Roosevelt. Other nations followed in appealing to 
arbitration, thereby assuring the success of this great 
advance in civiHzation.* 

In the summer of 1905 Mr. Hay went abroad for 
his health. His apparent improvement only served 
to make the news of his death a greater shock. Soon 
after his return home, on July 1, he died at his summer 
residence on Lake Sunapce, New Hampshire. The 
funeral services in Cleveland, on Julj^ 5, were attended 
by the President and all the Cabinet except Secretary 
Taft, who was abroad. Memorial services were held 
throughout the country and even in St. Paul's Cathe- 
dral, London, an honor seldom accorded a foreigner. 

One has only to look at a portrait of John Hay to 
see that he was a refined, cultured gentleman. His 
fastidiousness, his loyalty, and his grim determination 
sometimes made mean men uncomfortable in his 
presence. No official was more accessible, however, 
to those who had genuine business with him. In 
fact, as Ambassador to England he often exercised a 

* Full information concerning the history and the work of 
"The Hague Tribunal" can be obtained, much of it gratis, from 
the American Peace Society, 313 Colorado Building, Washing- 
ton, D. C. 



60 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

forbearance with bores that must have sorely tried 
his diplomacy. He was unassuming and modest in 
the extreme. In Cabinet meetings he was an authority 
on international matters but seldom discussed other 
affairs. His dry humor met appreciation among 
those who knew him well. He did not enjoy speech 
making, but always prepared himself carefully and 
acquitted himself well. A strong sense of duty was 
the predominant trait of his character. Only this 
could have induced him to leave a quiet life to take 
up the exacting work of Secretary of State. The two 
greatest influences in his hfe were the personality of 
Abraham Lincoln and the teaching of the Golden 
Rule. 

Bibliography of John Hay's Life 

Harper's Weekly, March 4, 1905, p. 309. 

Harper's Weekly, July 15, 1905, p. 1,006. 

Harper's Weekly, August 12, 1905, p. 1,157. 

Harper's Weekly, September 10, 1905, p. 1,341. 

Harper's Weekly, October 21, 1905, p. 1,530. 

The World's Work, August, 1905, p. 6,561. 

The Review of Reviews, August, 1905, p. 166, portrait. 

The Outlook, July 8, 1905, p. 610. 

Littell's Living Age, July 29, 1905, p. 316 (English estimate). 



AMERICA'S LOVE OF PEACE 



AMERICA'S LOVE OF PEACE* 

An Address by the Hon. John Hay 

I ESTEEM it a great honor and privilege to be allowed 
to extend to 3"ou the welcome of the Government 
and the people of the United States of America on 
this memorable and auspicious occasion. No time 
could be more fitting for this gathering of a parlia- 
ment of peace than to-day, when at the other end of 
the world the thunder of a destructive and sanguinary- 
war is deafening the nations, while here we are pre- 
paring to settle the question of a vast transfer of 
power by an appeal to reason and orderly procedure, 
under the sanction of a law implicitly accepted by 
eighty millions of people. 

And as if heaven had decided to give a sign of 
deepest significance to the hour of your meeting,- it 
coincides with the commitment to eternal peace of 
all that was mortal of our dear and honored co-laborer 
in this sacred cause. George Frisbie Hoar had many 
titles to glory and honor. Not the least of them was 
the firm and constant courage with which, through 
all his illustrious life, he pleaded for humanity and 
universal good will. 

No place could be more suitable than this high- 
hearted cit3% which has been for nearly three hundred 

* Reprinted from "Addresses of John Hay" by special per- 
mission of The Century Company. 

63 



64 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

years the birthplace and the home of every idea of 
progress and enhghtenment which has germinated 
in the Western World. To bid you welcome to the 
home of Vane, of Winthrop, and of Adams, of Chan- 
ning and Emerson, is to give you the freedom of no 
mean city, to make you partakers of a spiritual inheri- 
tance without which, with all our opulence, we should 
be poor indeed. It is true that this great Common- 
Avealth has sought, with the sword, peace under 
liberty. We confess that many wars have left their 
traces in the pages of its history and its literature; 
art has adorned the public places of this"stately town 
with the statues of its heroic sons. But the dominant 
note of its highest culture, its most persistent spirit, 
has been that righteousness which exalteth a nation, 
that obedience to the inner light which leads along 
the paths of peace. 

And the policy of the nation at large, which owes 
so much of its civic spirit to the founders of New 
England, has been in the main a policy of peace. 
During the hundred and twenty years of our inde- 
pendent existence we have had but three wars with 
the outside world, though we have had a most grievous 
and dolorous struggle with our own people. We have 
had, I think, a greater relative immunity from war 
than any of our neighbors. All our greatest men 
have been earnest advocates of peace. The very men 
who founded our liberties with the mailed hand detested 
and abhorred war as the most futile and ferocious 
of human follies. 

FrankHn and Jefferson repeatedly denounced it — 
the one with all the energy of his rhetoric, the other 
with the lambent fire of his wit. But not our philos- 



AMERICA'S LOVE OF PEACE 65 

ophers alone — our fighting men have seen at close 
quarters how hideous is the face of war. Washington 
sai-d, ''My first wish is to see this plague to mankind 
banished from the earth"; and again he said, ''We 
have experienced enough of its evils in this country 
to know that it should not be wantonly or unneces- 
sarily entered upon." There is no discordant note 
in the utterances of our most eminent soldiers on this 
subject. The most famous utterance of General 
Grant — the one which will linger longest in the memo- 
ries of men — was the prayer of his war-weary heart, 
"Let us have peace." Sherman reached the acme of 
his marvelous gift of epigram when he said, "War is 
hell." And Abraham Lincoln, after the four terrible 
years in which he had directed our vast armies and 
navies, uttered on the threshold of eternity the fervent 
and touching aspiration that " the mighty scourge 
of war might speedily pass away." 

There has been no solution of continuity in the 
sentiments of our Presidents on this subject up to 
this day. McKinley deplored with every pulse of 
his honest and kindly heart the advent of the war 
which he had hoped might not come in his day, and 
gladly hailed the earliest moment for making peace; 
and President Roosevelt has the same tireless energy 
in the work of concord that he displayed when he 
sought peace and ensured it on the field of battle. 
No Presidents in our history have been so faithful 
and so efficient as the last two in the cause of arbitra- 
tion and of every peaceful settlement of differences. 
I mention them together because their work has been 
harmonious and consistent. We hailed with joy 
the generous initiative of the Russian Emperor, and 



66 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

sent to the conference at The Hague the best men we 
had in our civic and military life. When The Hague 
Court lay apparently wrecked at the beginning of its 
voyage, threatened with death before it had fairly 
begun to live, it was the American Government which 
gave it the breath of life by inviting the Republic of 
Mexico to share our appeal to its jurisdiction; and the 
second case brought before it was at the instance of 
Mr. Roosevelt, who declined in its favor the high 
honor of arbitrating an affair of world-wide impor- 
tance. 

I beg you to believe, it is not by way of boasting 
that I recall these incidents to your minds; it is rather 
as a profession of faith in a cause which the present 
Administration has deeply at heart that I ask you 
to remember, in the deliberations upon which you are 
entering, the course to which the American Govern- 
ment is pledged and which it has steadily pursued 
for the last seven years. It is true that in those years 
we have had a hundred days of war — but they put an 
end forever to bloodshed which had lasted a generation. 
We landed a few platoons of marines on the Isthmus 
last year; but that act closed without a shot a san- 
guinary succession of trivial wars. We marched a 
little army to Peking; but it was to save not only the 
beleaguered legations, but a great imperiled civiliza- 
tion. By mingled gentleness and energy, to which 
most of the world beyond our borders has done justice, 
we have given to the Philippines, if not peace, at least 
a nearer approach to it than they have had within 
the memory of men. 

If our example is worth anything to the world, we 
have given it in the vital matter of disarmament. We 



AMERICA'S LOVE OF PEACE 67 

have brought away from the Far East 55,000 soldiers 
whose work was done, and have sent them back to 
the fields of peaceful activity. We have reduced our 
army to its minimum of 60,000 men; in fact, we may 
say we have no army, but in place of one a nucleus 
for drill and discipline. We have three-fourths of one 
soldier for every thousand of the population — a pro- 
portion which if adopted by other powers would at 
once eliminate wars and rumors of wars from the daily 
thoughts of the chancelleries of the world. 

But fixed as our tradition is, clear as is our purpose 
in the direction of peace, no country is permanently 
immune to war so long as the desire and the practice 
of peace are not universal. If we quote Washington 
as an advocate of peace, it is but fair also to quote 
him where he says: "To be prepared for war is one 
of the most effectual means of preserving peace." 
And at another time he said: "To an active external 
commerce the protection of a naval force is indis- 
pensable. To secure respect to a neutral flag requires 
a naval force organized and ready to vindicate it 
from insult or aggression." To acknowledge the 
existence of an evil is not to support or approve it; 
but the facts must be faced. Human history is one 
long desolate story of bloodshed. All the arts unite 
in the apparent conspiracy to give precedence to the 
glory of arms. Demosthenes and Pericles adjured 
the Athenians by the memory of their battles. Horace 
boasted that he had been a soldier, non sine gloria. 
Even Milton, in that sublime sonnet where he said: 
" Peace hath her victories no less renowned than 
war," mentioned among the godly trophies of Crom- 
well "Darwen stream with blood of Scots imbrued." 



68 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

In almost every sermon and hymn we hear in our 
churches the imagery of war and battle is used. We 
are charged to fight the good fight of faith; we are to 
sail through bloody seas to win the prize. The Chris- 
tian soldier is constantly marshaled to war. Not 
only in our habits and customs, but in our daily 
speech and in our inmost thoughts we are beset by 
the obsession of conflict and mutual destruction. It 
is like the law of sin in the members to which the 
greatest of the Apostles refers: ''Who shall deliver 
us from the body of this death?" 

I am speaking to those who recognize the lamentable 
state of things, and who yet do not accept it, or submit 
to it, and who hope that through the shadow of this 
night we shall sweep into a younger day. How is 
this great deliverance to be accomplished? 

We have all recently read that wonderful sermon 
on war by Count Tolstoi, in which a spirit of marvel- 
ous lucidity and fire absolutely detached from geo- 
graphical or political conditions, speaks the Word 
as it has been given him to speak it, and as no other 
living man could have done. As you read, v/ith an 
aching heart, his terrible arraignment of war, feeling 
that as a man you are partly responsible for all human 
atrocities, 3^ou wait with impatience for the remedy 
he shall propose, and you find it is — Religion. Yes, 
that is the remedy. If all would do right, nobody 
would do wrong — nothing is plainer. It is a counsel 
of perfection, satisfactory to prophets and saints, to be 
reached in God's good time. But you are here to 
consult together to see whether the generation now 
alive may not do something to hasten the coming of 
the acceptable day, the appearance on earth of the 



AMERICA'S LOVE OF PEACE 69 

beatific vision. If we can not at once make peace 
and good will the universal rule and practice of nations, 
what can we do to approximate this condition? What 
measures can we now take which may lead us at least 
a little distance toward the wished-for goal? 

I have not come to advise you; I have no such 
ambitious pretensions. I do not even aspire to take 
part in your deliberations. But I am authorized to 
assure you that the American Government extends 
to you a cordial and sympathetic welcome, and shares 
to the utmost the spirit and purpose in which you 
have met. The President, so long as he remains in 
power, has no thought of departing from the tradi- 
tions bequeathed us by the great soldiers and states- 
men of our early history, which have been strictly 
followed during the last seven years. We shall con- 
tinue to advocate and to carry into effect, as far as 
practicable, the principle of the arbitration of such 
questions as may not be settled through diplomatic 
negotiations. We have already done much in this 
direction; we shall hope to do much more. The 
President is now considering the negotiation of treaties 
of arbitration with such of the European powers as 
desire them, and hopes to lay them before the Senate 
next winter. And, finally, the President has only a 
few days ago promised, in response to the request 
of the Interparliamentary Union, to invite the nations 
to a second conference at The Hague to continue the 
beneficent work of the Conference of 1899. 

Unhappily we can not foresee in the immediate 
future the cessation of wars upon the earth. We ought 
therefore to labor constantly for the mitigation of the 
horrors of war, especially to do what we can to lessen 



70 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

the sufferings of those who have no part in the struggle. 
This has been one of the most warmly cherished wishes 
of the last two Administrations. I make no apology 
for reading you a paragraph from the message which 
President Roosevelt sent to Congress last December: 

"There seems good ground for the belief that there 
has been a real growth among the civilized nations 
of a sentiment which will permit a gradual substitution 
of other methods than the method of war in the settle- 
ment of disputes. It is not pretended that as yet 
we are near a position in which it will be possible 
wholly to prevent war, or that a just regard for national 
interest and honor will in all cases permit of the set- 
tlement of international disputes by arbitration; but 
by a mixture of prudence and firmness with wisdom 
we think it is possible to do away with nmch of the 
provocation and excuse for war, and at least in many 
cases to substitute some other and more rational 
methods for the settlement of disputes. The Hague 
Court offers so good an example of what can be done 
in the direction of such settlement that it should be 
encouraged in every way." 

Further steps should be taken. In President 
McKinley's annual message of December 5, 1898, he 
made the following recommendation: 

''The experiences of the last year bring forcibly 
home to us a sense of the burdens and the waste of 
war. We desire, in common with most civilized 
nations, to reduce to the lowest possible point the 
damage sustained in time of war by peaceable trade 
and commerce. It is true we may suffer in such cases 
less than other communities, but all nations are dam- 
aged more or less by the state of uneasiness and appre- 



AMERICA'S LOVE OF PEACE 71 

hension into which an outbreak of hostilities throws 
the entire commercial world. It should be our object, 
therefore, to minimize, so far as practicable, this 
inevitable loss and disturbance. This purpose can 
probably best be accomplished by an international 
agreement to regard all private property at sea as 
exempt from capture or destruction by the forces of 
belligerent powers. The United States Government 
has for many years advocated this humane and benef- 
icent principle, and is now in a position to recom- 
mend it to other powers without the imputation of 
selfish motives. I therefore suggest for your con- 
sideration that the Executive be authorized to corre- 
spond with the governments of the principal maritime 
powers with a view of incorporating into the permanent 
law of civilized nations the principle of the exemption 
of all private property at sea, not contraband of war, 
from capture or destruction by belligerent powers." 

The President urged this beneficent scheme with an 
earnestness which gained the willing attention of 
Congress, already predisposed to it in spirit, and on 
the 28th of April of this year he was able to approve 
a joint resolution of both Houses recommending that 
the ''President endeavor to bring about an under- 
standing among the principal maritime powers with 
a view of incorporating into the permanent law of 
civiHzed nations the principle of the exemption of all 
private property at sea, not contraband of war, from 
capture or destruction by belligerents." 

It has not been thought advisable by the President 
during the past summer to call the attention of the 
powers to a project which w^ould necessarily be regarded 
by two of them, and possibly by others, with reference 



72 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

to its bearing upon the deplorable conflict now raging 
in the Far East. But as we earnestly pray that the 
return of peace may not be long delayed between the 
two nations, to both of which we are bound by so 
many historic ties, we may confidently look forward 
at no distant day to inviting the attention of the 
nations to this matter, and we hope we may have 
the powerful influence of this great organization in 
gaining their adherence. 

The time allotted to me is at an end. I can only 
bid you Godspeed in your work. The task you have 
set yourselves, the purpose to which you are devoted, 
have won the praise of earth and the blessing of Heaven 
since the morning of time. The noblest of all the 
beatitudes is the consecration promised the peace- 
makers. Even if in our time we may not win the 
wreath of olive; even if we may not hear the golden 
clamor of the trumpets celebrating the reign of univer- 
sal and enduring peace, it is something to have desired 
it, to have worked for it in the measure of our forces. 
And if you now reap no visible guerdon of your labors 
the peace of God that passes understanding will be 
your all-sufficient reward. 



CAREER OF ELIHU ROOT 



CAREER OF ELIHU ROOT 

When Senator Root was asked to supply informa- 
tion about his life he replied with characteristic modesty 
that ''Who's Who" contains everything that is of 
importance. One glance at the formidable list of 
achievements there set down, challenges the reader's 
interest and arouses a desire for the details that will 
explain these successes. 

Elihu Root was born on February 15, 1845. His 
father was Oren Root, Professor of Mathematics in 
Hamilton College, Clinton, N. Y. The son also pos- 
sesses great mathematical ability. This he first 
employed to earn money for his law course by teach- 
ing in Rome Academy, Rome, N. Y. From boyhood 
Elihu Root's ambition was ''to be a lawyer in New 
York City." So, after being graduated in 1864 from 
Hamilton College, he studied law at New York Uni- 
versity and was admitted to the Bar in 1867. 

Without powerful friends and influence he made his 
way in the crowded legal profession of New York City. 
He had confidence in his knowledge of law and in his 
reasoning powers, that enabled him to meet the greatest 
lawyers of the day, to fight his cases against them with 
calmness and witty repartee, and to command by the 
time he was fift}' years old an income of over $200,000 
a year. 

From 1883 to 1885 he was United States District 
Attorney at New York City by appointment of Presi- 

75 



76 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

dent Arthur. In 1899 he gave up his lucrative law 
practice to become Secretary of War under President 
McKinley. Earty in 1904 he returned 'Ho be a lawyer 
in New York City," only to sacrifice his personal 
interests again in 1905 when, on the death of John 
Hay, he took up the duties of Secretary of State 
under President Roosevelt. From this office he 
resigned on January 27, 1909, to become United States 
Senator from New York for the term expiring in 1915. 
He has also served our government in special cases. 
In 1903 he was a member of the Alaskan Boundary 
Tribunal, which met in London and settled that long- 
standing dispute largely in favor of the United States. 
In 1910 he was counsel for the United States in the 
Northern Atlantic Fisheries Arbitration. He is a 
member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at 
The Hague, President of the Carnegie Endowment 
for International Peace ^ and President of the New 
York State Bar Association. 

On January 8, 1878, he married Miss Clara Wales 
of New York. He has one daughter and two sons. 
In addition to his New York and Washing-ton residences 
he has for his summer home a large farm at Clinton, 
N. Y. Here at Hamilton College he has erected 
a memorial hall in honor of his father. 

His published writings, aside from several state 
documents such as the Constitution of Cuba and the 
provisional rules for governing the Philippines, are as 
follows: ''Causes of War" and "Sanction of Inter- 
national Law" (gratis from the American Association 
for International ConciUation, Station 84, New York 
City); "The Citizen's Part in Government" (Scrib- 
ner's); "How to Preserve the Local Self Government 



CAREER OF ELIHU ROOT 77 

of the States" (Brentano's) ; ''Individual Effort in 
Trade Expansion" (American Academy of Social and 
Political Science, Station B, Philadelphia); and 
''Speeches Incident to the Visit of Secretary Root to 
South America" (Supt. of Documents, Washington, 
D. C.) 

A former president of the United States once said, 
"EUhu Root is the ablest man I have known in our 
government service." This ability was first shown 
in his work as Secretary of War. His task in 1899 was 
particularly difficult; for the Spanish-American War 
had revealed the inefficiency of our army organization, 
there were bitter jealousies and quarrels among officials 
in the War Department, and the insurrection in the 
PhiHppines was proving a serious affair. Before noon 
of his first day in office Secretary Root had restored 
outward peace among his subordinates and had shown 
that he was to be master, by the simple act of taking 
Adjutant General Corbin as guide and calling on 
Major General Miles, whose authority had been 
ignored by the former Secretary and by General Corbin, 
and later visiting in their offices all of the Chiefs of 
Bureaus. Then he was free to proceed to his first 
duty, which he said was "to wind up the insurrection 
in the Philippines in the shortest time." Within two 
weeks he secured the President's approval of his plan 
to raise ten volunteer reg ments, and ^^ ithin four months 
he had hese fresh troops at the service of General Otis. 
Finally he systematized the work of his department 
and inaugurated the General Staff as the directing body 
of the army, the greatest improvement in a hundred 
years in the organization of the army. 

The work of Secretary of State was not entirely new 



78 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

to Mr. Root when he succeeded to that office; for on 
occasions when Mr. Hay was sick, the Secretary of 
War had carried on the work of the State Department. 
Secretary Root at once increased the efficiency of the 
department by systematizing its work. One of his 
greatest services to the country came from his South 
American trip, during which voyage he deUvered 
addresses at most of the principal seaport cities of 
South America. In Brazil his task was not difficult, 
for this country has always been friendly to the United 
States; but in the Spanish- American countries farther 
south his diplomatic skill met a severer test. At Mon- 
tevideo he tactfully removed from the minds of the 
people the idea that the United States had permanently 
injured Spain. He made it clear that all coimtries 
can profit commercially without being bound together 
politically, and showed especially that ties can better 
be strengthened between the United States and Latin 
America when there is no mother country in Europe 
to be embarrassed by the Monroe Doctrine. Genuine 
favor arose when he opposed the collection of national 
debts by force and preached the doctrine of mutual 
helpfulness and regard for international reputation. 
Events since 1906 have shown the wisdom of Secretary 
Root's neighborly visit, and the future will doubtless 
increase the nation's regard for the foresight and skill 
of its first official visitor. 

Mr. Root has a keen, analytical mind that goes to 
the bottom of problems and reaches sound conclusions. 
Like Edison, he is oblivious to the passing of time 
when he is at work. He is always calm and self- 
controlled. When Congress refused to pass certain 
bills advocated by the Secretary of War, he simply 



CAREER OF ELIHU ROOT 79 

blamed himself and set about preparing his case in a 
better way. He is reserved, yet capable of deep 
emotions. For McKinley he felt the strong love that 
was aroused among most associates of that President. 
EHhu Root appreciates men for what they do; he 
stimulates them to their best; and, if he fails to win 
their affection, he always commands their admiration. 

Bibliography of Elihu Root's Career 

Harper's Weekly, August 25, 1906, p. 1,192. 

Harper's Weekly, May 4, 1907, p. 635. 

World's Work, December, 1900, p. 123 and p. 174 (portrait). 

Re\dew of Re\dews, September, 1899, p. 285. 

Re\dew of Re\'iews, January, 1904, p. 35. 

Review of Reviews, August, 1905, p. 134. 

Review of Reviews, November, 1906, p. 583 (portraits). 



THE PAN-AMEPtlCAN SPIRIT 



THE PAN-AMERICAN SPIRIT* 

An Address by the Hon. Elihu Root 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Third 
Conference of American Republics: 

I beg you to believe that I highly appreciate and 
thank you for the honor you do me. 

I bring from my country a special greeting to her 
elder sisters in the civilization of America. 

UnUke as we are in many respects, we are ahke in 
this — ^that we are all engaged, under new conditions, 
and free from the traditional forms and limitations 
of the Old World, in working out the same problem of 
popular self-government. 

It is a difficult and laborious task for each of us. 
Not in one generation nor in one century can the 
effective control of a superior sovereign, so long deemed 
necessary to government, be rejected, and effective 
self-control by the governed be perfected in its place. 
The first fruits of democracy are many of them crude 
and unlovely; its mistakes are many, its partial failures 
many, its sins not few. Capacity for self-government 
does not come to man by nature. It is an art to be 
learned, and it is also an expression of character to be 
developed among all the thousands of men who exercise 
popular sovereignty. 

* Reprinted from ''The Outlook" of Oct. 20, 1906, by special 
permission of the Editors of "The Outlook " and with the approval 
of Senator Root. 

83 



84 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

To reach the goal toward which we are pressing for- 
ward, the governing multitudes must first acquire 
knowledge that comes from universal education, 
wisdom that follows practical experience, personal 
independence and self-respect befitting men who 
acknowledge no superior, self-control to replace that 
external control which a democracy rejects, respect 
for law, obedience to the lawful expressions of the 
public will, consideration for the opinions and interests 
of others equally entitled to a voice in the State, 
loyalty to that abstract conception — one's country — 
as inspiring as that loyalty to personal sovereigns 
which has so illumined the pages of history, sub- 
ordination of personal interests to the public good, 
love of justice and mercy, of liberty and order. All 
these we must seek with slow and patient effort; and 
of how many shortcomings in his 0Y\m land and among 
his own people each one of us is conscious. 

Yet no student of our times can fail to see that not 
America alone, but the whole civilized world, is swing- 
ing away from its old governmental moorings and 
intrusting the fate of its civilization to the capacity of 
the popular mass to govern. By this pathway man- 
kind is to travel, whithersoever it leads. Upon the 
success of this our undertaking the hope of humanity 
depends. 

Nor can we fail to see that the world makes sub- 
stantial progress toward more perfect popular self- 
government. 

I beUeve it to be true that, viewed against the back- 
ground of conditions a century, a generation, a decade 
ago, government in my own countrj^ has advanced, 
in the intelligent participation of the great mass of 



THE PAN-AMERICAN SPrRIT 85 

the people, in the fideUty and honesty with which they 
are represented, in respect for law, in obedience to the 
dictates of a sound morality, and in effectiveness and 
purity of administration. 

Nowhere in the world has this progress been more 
marked than in Latin America. Out of the wrack of 
Indian fighting and race conflicts and civil wars, strong 
and stable governments have arisen. Peaceful suc- 
cession in accord with the people's will has replaced 
the forcible seizure of power permitted by the people's 
indifference. Loyalty to country, its peace, its dignity, 
its honor, has risen above partisanship for individual 
leaders. The rule of law supersedes the rule of man. 
Property is protected and the fruits of enterprise are 
secure. Individual liberty is respected. Continuous 
public policies are followed; national faith is held 
sacred. Progress has not been equal everywhere, but 
there has been progress everywhere. The movement 
in the right direction is general. The right tendency 
is not exceptional; it is continental. The present 
affords just cause for satisfaction; the future is bright 
with hope. 

It is not by national isolation that these results have 
been accomplished or that this progress can be con- 
tinued. No nation can live unto itself alone and 
continue to live. Each nation's growth is a part of 
the development of the race. There may be leaders 
and there may be laggards, but no nation can long 
continue very far in advance of the general progress 
of mankind, and no nation that is not doomed to extinc- 
tion can remain very far behind. It is with nations 
as it is with individual men; intercourse, association, 
correction of egotism by the influence of others' judg- 



86 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

ment, broadening of views by the experience and 
thought of equals, acceptance of the moral standards 
of a community the desire for whose good opinion 
lends a sanction to the rules of right conduct — these 
are the conditions of growth in civilization. A people 
whose minds are not open to the lessons of the world's 
progress, whose spirits are not stirred by the aspira- 
tions and the achievements of humanity struggling the 
world over for liberty and justice, must be left behind 
by civihzation in its steady and beneficent advance. 

To promote this mutual interchange and assistance 
between the American Republics, engaged in the same 
great task, inspired by the same purpose, and profes- 
sing the same principles, I understand to be the function 
of the American Conference now in session. There is 
not one of all our countries that cannot benefit the 
others; there is not one that cannot receive benefit 
from the others; there is not one that will not gain by 
the prosperity, the peace, the happiness of all. 

According to your programme, no great and impres- 
sive single thing is to be done by you; no political 
questions are to be discussed; no controversies are to 
be settled; no judgment is to be passed upon the con- 
duct of any State; but many subjects are to be con- 
sidered, which afford the possibility of removing 
barriers to intercourse, of ascertaining for the common 
benefit what advances have been made by each nation 
in knowledge, in experience, in enterprise, in the 
solution of difficult questions of government, and in 
ethical standards, of perfecting our knowledge of each 
other, and of doing aAvay with the misconceptions, 
the misunderstandings, and the resultant prejudices 
that are such fruitful sources of controversy. 



THE PAN-AMERICAN SPIRIT 87 

And there are some subjects in the programme 
which invite discussion that may lead the American 
RepubHcs toward agreement upon principles, the 
general practical application of which can come only 
in the future through long and patient effort. Some 
advance at least may be made here toward the com- 
plete rule of justice and peace among nations in lieu 
of force and war. 

The association of so many eminent men from all 
the RepubHcs, leaders of opinion in their own homes, 
the friendships that will arise among you, the habit 
of temperate and kindly discussion of matters of 
common interest, the ascertainment of common 
sympathies and aims, the dissipation of misunder- 
standings, the exhibition to all the American peoples 
of this peaceful and considerate method of conferring 
upon international questions — this alone, quite irre- 
spective of the resolutions you may adopt and the 
conventions you may sign, will mark a substantial 
advance in the direction of international good under- 
standing. 

These beneficent results the Government and the 
people of the United States of America greatly desire. 
We wish for no victories but those of peace; for no 
territory except our own; for no sovereignty except 
the sovereignty over ourselves. We deem the inde- 
pendence and equal rights of the smallest and weakest 
member of the family of nations entitled to as much 
respect as those of the greatest empire, and we deem 
the observance of that respect the chief guaranty of 
the weak against the oppression of the strong. We 
neither claim nor desire any rights, or privileges, or 
powers that we do not freely concede to every American 



88 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

Republic. We wish to increase our prosperity, to 
expand our trade, to grow in wealth, in wisdom and 
in spirit; but our conception of the true way to 
accompUsh this is not to pull down others and profit by 
their ruin, but to help all friends to a common 
prosperity and a common growth, that we may all 
become greater and stronger together. 

Within a few months, for the first time, the recog- 
nized possessors of every foot of soil upon the American 
continents can be, and I hope will be, represented 
with the acknowledged rights of equal sovereign 
States in the great World Congress at The Hague. 
This will be the world's formal and final acceptance 
of the declaration that no part of the American con- 
tinents is to be deemed subject to colonization. Let 
us pledge ourselves to aid one another in the full 
performance of the duty to humanity which that 
accepted declaration implies, so that in time the 
weakest and most unfortunate of our Republics may 
come to march with equal step by the side of the 
stronger and more fortunate. Let us help one another 
to show that for all the races of men the Liberty for 
which we have fought and labored is the sister of 
Justice and Peace. Let us unite in creating and 
maintaining and making effective an ail-American 
public opinion, whose power shall influence inter- 
national conduct and prevent international wrong, 
and narrow the causes of war, and forever preserve 
our free lands from the burden of such armaments 
as are massed behind the frontiers of Europe, and bring 
us ever nearer to the perfection of ordered liberty. 
So shall come security and prosperity, production and 
trade, wealth, learning, the arts, and happiness for us all. 



THE PAN-AMERICAN SPIRIT 89 

Not in a single conference, nor by a single effort, 
can very much be done. You labor more for the 
future than for the present; but if the right impulse 
be given, if the right tendency be established, the 
work you do here will go on among all the millions 
of people in the American continents long after your 
final adjournment, long after your lives, with incal- 
culable benefit to all our beloved countries, which 
may it please God to continue free and independent 
and happy for ages to come. 



NOTES 



NOTES 

The numerals in bold-faced type indicate pages and lines. 

TRUE AMERICANISM 

11-1. Schurz's note on the occasion of the speech, April 30, 
1859, in Faneuil Hall. ''The speaker had been invited to Bos- 
ton to participate in a public dinner on the anniversary of Jef- 
ferson's birthday. Several prominent gentlemen of Massa- 
chusetts arranged for him a public reception in Faneuil 
Hall, which took place a few days after the Jefferson dinner, 
Hon. Henry Wilson, U. S. S., presiding. The speech was 
made in response to the introduction by Senator Wilson. 
The line of argument pursued in the speech was not with- 
out special object. The Legislature of Massachusetts had 
adopted an amendment to the Constitution of the State, by 
which foreigners should not be permitted to vote until 
two years after they had become citizens of the United 
States. This amendment, generally known as the two- 
yoars'-amendment, was to be voted on by the people. It 
was one of the measures brought forth by the so-called 
know-nothing or American movement, which for a few 
years had been sweeping all over the United States. It was 
against this spirit of proscription for the sake of birth, 
creed, or opinion, styhng itself Americanism, that the 
speaker directed his arguments." 

11-8- Cf. Webster's First Bunker Hill Oration, paragraphs 
7 and 8. 

93 



94 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

12-29. "Reminiscences of Carl Schurz," Vol. I, gives 
this scene in detail. 

13-13. Uprisings in Germany in 1848. See Life of Carl 
Schurz in this text or, better still, ''Reminiscences of Carl 
Schurz," Vol. I. 

15-13. The use of cannon at the battle of Crecy, 1346, ren- 
dered the customary coat of mail obsolete. 

17-15. The speaker's purpose is becoming evident — to 
show that a country settled by so many nationalities ought 
not to discriminate against foreigners, as Massachusetts con- 
templated doing. 

17-33. Instances should be cited, as the Norman inva- 
sion of England. Let the student recall examples from his- 
tory. 

19-26. Schurz is not often epigrammatic, as here. 

21-15. Hamlet's words to his mother when he reproached 
her for marrying her former husband's brother. Cf . Hamlet, 
III., 4-53. 

25-2. Look up Macaulay's striking paragraph in his Essay 
on Milton, par. 71. One sentence reads, "There is only 
one cure for the evils which newly acquired freedom produces; 
and that cure is freedom." Contrast Burke's statement in 
" Concihation " that slavery in the southern colonies makes 
the masters love liberty the more. The apparent contra- 
diction can be dissolved by showing that Schurz 's and 
Macaulay's idea of liberty was broader than that mentioned 
in this particular case by Burke. Consider affairs in China, 
especially during the winter of 1912. 

25-7. How can you reconcile these principles and the pol- 
icy of education before self-government is granted, which the 
United States pursued with Cuba and the Phihppines? 
Consider the relative civihzation of the different peoples 
involved. 

25-31. See some good United States History for an ac- 
count of the Fugitive Slave Law. 

26-6. Schurz must have realized the alternative of war. 



NOTES 95 

26-30. Cf. French Revolution of 1792. 

28-10. Burke's doctrine of expediency was of a different 
nature. He sacrificed no principles. 

28-18. Very naturally Schurz left the RepubUcan ranks 
and about 1870 became an independent in politics. 

29-18. A reference to the Constitutional Amendment ex- 
plained in Note 1. 

30-8. An interesting prophecy. Only his faith in the 
power of right could make him speak so surely. 

31-9. Cf. Mrs. Shelley's "Frankenstein." 

33-28. Cf. "In hoc signo vinci," ancient motto of Ro- 
mans. 



THE NEW SOUTH 

41-1. "The New South" was dehvered as an after- 
dinner speech on December 12, 1886, in New York City at 
the annual meeting of the New England Society. Of his 
feehngs at the time Mr. Grady afterward said, "When I 
found myself on my feet, every nerve in my body was 
strung as tight as a fiddle-string and all tingling. I knew 
then that I had a message for that assemblage." News- 
papers throughout the country printed portions of the 
address and credited Grady with doing much toward 
reconciling the North and the South. In this connection 
consider the spirit of such poems as "The Blue and 
the Gray" by F. M. Finch, "Answering to Roll-call" 
and "The War-ship 'Dixie' " by Frank L. Stanton, 
and "The New Memorial Day" by Albert B. Paine 
(in "Poetry of the People"). "The literary Digest" of 
February 15, 1913, contains an account of the first monu- 
ment celebrating "The Blue and the Gray," which is being 
erected in the city of Fitzgerald, Georgia. The reader will 
surely notice in the third paragraph the graceful courtesy 
of the speaker and his consciousness that he was present as 
the representative of the South. 

42.; In the fourth and fifth paragraphs Grady uses col- 
loquial and facetious phrases in order to disarm any 
antagonism that his sentiments might provoke. 

43-3. There cannot be the slightest doubt of Grady's 
sincerity in this tribute to Lincoln or of his rhetorical skill 
in thus insuring a friendly hearing by his praise of a North- 
ern hero. Macaulay, in his "Essay on Milton," in a similar 
way shows that Milton combined the best quahties of both 
Puritan and Cavaher. 

96 



NOTES 97 

44-2. An effective example of contrast, which introduces 
the main point of the address. Here we have oratory of a 
high quahty. 

44-31. " — his people without law or legal status." 
Although the national government established military rule 
and federal courts as soon as possible, yet the practical effect 
was, for a short period after Lee's surrender, just as Grady 
has described the situation. 

45-24. The ''brave and beautiful city " is Atlanta, Ga. 

46-8. What do ''four per cent bonds" indicate as to the 
financial reputation of a city? 

47-11. So hve a subject as the negro question lends itself 
to prejudiced discussion. If the matter is taken up in class 
by students, it should be studied dispassionately and with a 
desire to help solve the problem. See "The Literary 
Digest" of February 1, 1913, for a suggestive article show- 
ing by census returns the wonderful advance made by the 
negro in his fifty years of freedom. 

49-14. "Jewel in the toad's head." Since the time of 
Pliny (first century A.D.) frequent reference has been made to 
the belief that the toad, although ugly and venomous, has in 
its head a stone or jewel of wondrous virtue. Shakspere and 
prose writers of his time refer to this superstition. The idea 
still exists in such metaphorical form as is here illustrated. 

50-16. Is the new and different tone of the last four 
paragraphs in good taste? Recall the occasion of the speech, 
the native state of the speaker, and the intemperate state- 
ments that frequently disgraced both North and South. 
Notice especially the reference to Grant and Lee. 

52-20. The closing quotation may be found unabridged 
in Shaksperc's King Henry IV, Part I, Scene I. Why did 
Grady omit certain portions of the passage? 



AMERICA'S LOVE OF PEACE 

63. Many teachers and students using this book will desire 
to read further among the speeches of recent years and the 
earlier speeches on peace and war. It would be well, then, 
to communicate with the American Peace Society, Colorado 
Building, Washington, D. C; for that society furnishes an 
extensive bibhography, sends some publications gratis and 
many at a trifling cost. In addition, Vol. Ill (America) 
of The World's Famous Orations (Funk and Wagnalls, N. 
Y.) contains speeches by Schurz, Curtis, Grady, Miss 
Willard, and McKinley, all of which will prove interesting 
and enlightening as to the trend of recent history. Current 
events also may be correlated with the study of this speech; 
for, as the Third Hague Conference draws near, much 
attention will be given to the subject of peace. 

63-1. The occasion of Secretary Hay's speech was the 
Thirteenth International Congress of Peace, opened on 
October 3, 1904, in Boston. 

63-8. The Russo-Japanese War, February 10, 1904, to 
September 5, 1905. 
- 63-9. Presidential election of November 8, 1904. 

63-17. ''Who's Who" for 1903-1905 and the Encyclope- 
dia of National Biography contain information about the 
men referred to in paragraphs 2 and 3. 

64-15. Proverbs XIV, 34. "Righteousness exalteth a 
nation, but sin is a reproach to any people." Here, as in 
Burke's speeches, we find Biblical echoes. 

64-31. Some of Frankhn's utterances on war follow: 
' ' — the foolish part of mankind will make wars from time to 
time with each other, not having sense enough otherwise to 

98 



NOTES 99 

settle their differences." (Letter to Edmund Burke, October 
15, 1781.) ''All wars are follies, very expensive, and very 
mischievous ones." (January 27, 1783.) "There never was 
a good war or a bad peace." (July 27, 1783.) ''An army 
is a devouring monster." (September 20, 1787.) 

65-12. Elsewhere he said, "I am tired and sick of the war. 
Its glory is all moonshine." General Sheridan said in 1876, 
"War will eliminate itself. ... By the next centennial, 
arbitration will rule the world." 

65-17. In his second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865, 
about five weeks before his assassination, Lincoln said, 
' 'Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty 
scourge of war may speedily pass away." 

65-21. Reference to the news reviews of 1898 will show how 
the passion of the country was aroused largely by "yellow 
journalism." If The Hague Tribunal had been in existence 
at that time, would the outcome of the blowing up of the 
"Maine" have been different? In this connection, con- 
sider the "Dogger Bank" incident of the Russo-Japanese 
War. 

65-33. The Czar in August of 1898 and in January of 1899 
invited the nations of the world to a peace conference at 
The Hague. This met in May of 1899 and organized The 
Hague Court, which opened in 1901. 

66-3. These matters are treated in greater detail in the 
Life of John Hay preceding this speech. 

66-21. The Spanish-American War freed Cuba and the 
Philippines from the oppression of Spain. 

66-22. The independence of Panama from Colombia was 
secured in 1903 and is guaranteed by the United States. 

66-25. This matter is discussed in the editor's account of 
the life of John Hay. 

66-29. The Philippines. After the capture of Aguinaldo 
the larger part of the United States troops was withdrawn 
and an educational army of American teachers took their 
place. The results of their work make it possible for Con- 



100 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

gress to consider (in 1913) the matter of granting self-govern- 
ment to the Filipinos. 

67-16. Since 1904 sentiment has so changed that many 
people now refuse to believe what were formerly regarded 
as axioms on peace and war. The alternative axiom is sug- 
gested, "In time of peace prepare by treaties to refer every 
grievance to the World Court." 

68-1. Most of these hymns were written in earlier times 
when men had not heard of arbitration. Recent hymn 
books omit many of this kind of sacred songs. 

68-10. Romans VII, 24. 

68-17. ''Bethink Yourselves" (American Peace Society). 

69-28. The Second Hague Conference, on account of the 
Russo-Japanese War, did not meet until June, 1907. At 
that time much was done to ameliorate the horrors of war. 

70-23. During President Taft's administration treaties 
providing for the arbitration of all disputes were signed by 
the United States and England and by the United States 
and France. 

72-14. Matthew V, 9. "Blessed are the peacemakers: 
for they shall be called the children of God." 



THE PAN-AMERICAN SPIRIT 

83. During the summer of 1906 Elihu Root, then Secretary 
of State, made a sixteen thousand mile trip, touching at the 
principal seaports of South America. His official position 
and the fact that he sailed on the United States' cruiser 
Charleston, secured him a cordial reception in every city 
that he visited. Rio de Janeiro in particular paid him great 
honor. He was escorted in stately procession up the mile- 
long Avenida Central, which had been decorated with 
flowers for the occasion, to the building where the Pan- 
American Conference had been in session since July 23d. 
Here he delivered on July 31st the address on "The Pan- 
American Spirit." 

The sincerity of the speaker and the moderation and 
wisdom of liis message, servx-d to restore almost immediately 
the confidence of the southern republics in the good faith 
of the United States. At the close of the speech the repre- 
sentative of the Brazilian Government announced that, in 
honor of the official guest and of the United States, the Con- 
ference building would thereafter be known as Palacio Monroe. 

83-15. Cf. Note 25-2, on ''True Americanism." 

In this connection, the student should call to mind the 
policy of the United States in the Philippines. Since 1898 
the natives have been educated by American teachers accord- 
ing to American methods for the purpose of preparing them 
for self government. 

84-20. That this prophecy had its basis in a keen obser- 
vation, can be seen by the events of 1912, when China 
became a republic. 

101 



102 MODERN AMERICAN SPEECHES 

85-25. This conception of national life, distinctively of our 
own time, has its chief expression in The Hague Tribunal. 

86-19. This will be particularly true when the Panama 
Canal is in use. 

87-9. A league of the student societies of the South Ameri- 
can universities is doing much to further international peace, 
understanding, and sympathy. It has held congresses at 
Montevideo in 1908, at Buenos Aires in 1910, and at Lima, 
Peru in 1912. The object is to create a student sympathy 
throughout Latin America. 

87-22. Because of the Spanish- American War some South 
American countries distrusted the intentions of the United 
States. One of the chief purposes of Secretary Root's trip 
was to assure our southern neighbors that we had no idea 
of entering on an imperialistic career. 

89. A careful study of Secretary Root's speech cannot fail 
to suggest many topics for discussion and debate — topics 
that are the more valuable because each month's news of 
the world throws new light on them. 

A study of Mr. Root's speech will naturally awaken interest 
in the affairs of South America. Much information can be 
obtained by reading the articles listed in the Bibliography 
of Eliliu Root's Career and in other magazines of 1906. 
Students can find in the current daily papers and in the 
"Bulletin of the Pan-American Union" (published monthly 
in Washington) news that will bring the subject matter of 
this speech up to date. Commercial students, debating 
societies, and all who are interested in the progress of the 
world of to-day, will gain from these sources many valuable 
facts and ideas. 



COMPOSITION AND RHETORIC 

By Charles Swain Thomas, Head of the English 
Department, Newton (Mass.) High School, and 
Will David Howe, Head of the English Depart- 
ment, Indiana University. Illustrated. 5^5 pp. 
$1.20. 

A special attempt has been made to furnish clear and simple direc- 
tions, with an abundance of exercises chosen from good writers, and 
with exercises which will test the pupil's understanding of the principles 
of writing. The exercises selected are the result of years of testing in 
the class room. 

Special attention is invited to the clear and very practical presenta- 
tion of oral comyosition. 

The important subject of theme correction is very fully and carefully 
treated. In the chapter given to it there are reproduced a number of 
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show the teacher's corrections in red ink. 

The pictures in this book are assigned as a part of the work. 
Chicago, III., Medill High School. 

"By far the most helpful high school Rhetoric I have ever seen." — 
Mrs. M. C. McKeon, Teacher of English. 

Buffalo, N. Y., Central High School. 

"Full of practical work and suggestions." — Miss Mabel B. Suttle- 
worth. Teacher of English. 

St. Paul, Minn., Cleveland High School. 

" Written by teachers who are alert to the best methods." — Miss 
Florence M. Perry, Teacher of English. 



THE ENGLISH TEACHER'S MANUAL 

For convenience a teacher's manual has been published. This 
manual is designed to help the inexperienced teacher. For the experi- 
enced teacher it is intended to serve as a note book of matters of 
special interest, special applications, or additional drill. There are 
ample blank spaces for note making. 

Suggestions, inspiring hints, modem views, practical ways and 
means, planning work, and good advice characterize this manual. 

Price 25 cents. Sent free, upon application, to teachers using this 
Rhetoric. 

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO., Publishers 



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FOR PREPARATION FOR COLLEGE 
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General Editors: George Rice Carpenter, for- 
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sition, and A. H. Thorndike, Professor of English 
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contains full notes, introduction, bibliography, and 
other explanatory and illustrative matter. With 
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As pioneers in the field of English texts for school use, Longmans' 
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"The strength, independence, and originality of each of the various 
editors and their high scholarship and special fitness. The individual 
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value; each one is worked out on some new and original idea which 
gives to the teacher ' a certain vitalization of thought and ferment of 
the imagination.' " 

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO., Publishers 



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